


Spark

by brooklynsunrise (paramorebrighter)



Category: Castle
Genre: Addiction, Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Future, Bisexual, Depression, F/F, Future Fic, NSFW, Recovery, femme slash
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-11
Updated: 2015-08-08
Packaged: 2018-02-24 23:13:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2600042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paramorebrighter/pseuds/brooklynsunrise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Castle died, it’s taken Beckett a few years to pick up the pieces. She runs into a grown-up Alexis Castle, who is trying to sort out her life after the ending of a relationship in Europe, and there's a long-simmering, previously ignored spark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Spark

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle.
> 
> This is my first femme-fic, so be gentle! This is an alternate universe mid season 6. Castle died after Beckett got out of the Attorney General's office and Alexis moved to Copenhagen with Pi and sorted out her grief for a few years. Beckett dove into work in response to Castle's death and had worked her way up to captain very quickly.

Her office went dark at the flip of a switch.

Three years had passed since Castle had died and the high definition photograph of a stairwell that had once hung in his office hung over her desk, a reminder of the man that had made her life so bright for so long. It was like saying goodnight to him, as if he was really still alive.

Sometimes, the pain was too great to understand or imagine. Most of the time, she just buckled down on her career. She had a few things to remember him by, but seeing as they had never gotten married, it had been difficult. Alexis had been kind and gave some of his things to her before going to Europe to backpack across the continent and forget everything for a while.

Kate was the captain of the precinct, now. So much stayed the same, so much changed. She got a few postcards from Alexis but knew she had friends of her own to keep up with, and her Grams and her mother. The postcards stopped after about a year. Then, that was it. She thought fondly of Alexis; a cute red-headed girl with a need for perfection.

Her life in the precinct was pretty boring these days: she worked. A lot. That was why she rose up in the ranks so quickly and was now the Captain of her own precinct. They were still going late into the night when she was leaving. Typical New York, since her district covered the Meat-Packing District.

She said goodnight to her staff as she left for the night. She had a party to attend in the Upper West Side, hopefully not going past Castle’s old apartment. She purposefully avoided it; too much familiarity for her, too many memories.

She went home to quickly change clothes and put on some make-up. It felt good to go out for once, what with her schedule. Ryan and Jenny had invited her over to Sarah Grace’s third birthday and she couldn’t be more excited. They had made her godmother for obvious reasons: Castle died right before she was born. Kate had carefully chosen the present: LaLaLoopsie, one of her favorite toys, and it was wrapped in pink and cream checkered paper with a bow. She hailed a cab once she was out of her building to take to the Ryan’s apartment in the Upper West Side.

There was a group of people with children already there: she felt barren and old when she saw them. As she walked in, she saw a short little, tow-headed figure dart through the crowd. “Aunt Katie!” Sarah Grace drawled.

“My little munchkin! It’s so good to see you!” Kate cried, scooping her up in a hug. “Oh, you’re getting so big!”

“You got me a pwesent?” she asked, gazing up with her dark eyes.

“I did! You’re three years old today! It’s not every day my favorite goddaughter turns three!”

“Beckett! You made it!” Ryan cried. He went in for a hug from her, and she didn’t resist.

“Good to see you,” Kate said warmly to her old friend.

“You look like you’re doing well,” he said, hugging her. “They’re working you too hard at the Meat-Packing District?”

“Nope, I’m good,” she sighed. “Work is about all I do these days.”

“Kate Beckett, is that you!?” Jenny cried.

“Hi, Jenny!” Kate cried.

“Can I get a hug?” she asked, approaching: and Kate saw that she was pregnant again. She hugged her old friend. “I never see you anymore.”

“I’m working a lot,” she admitted. “You look great. You’re really glowing.”

“Between the gas and heartburn, sure, I look great,” Jenny said, rolling her eyes. “At least the morning sickness is over. Let me take the present over to the table.” She took the present from Kate.

“You’ll never guess who’s here,” Ryan said. “Please promise me you won’t get upset.”

“Why would I get upset? Is it Josh?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Demming.”

“No, it’s um… We ran into Alexis Castle a few days ago.”

Her heart skipped a beat.

Like she needed a reminder of Castle in her life again.

“Alexis Castle?” she repeated.

“We invited her. She finally came home from Europe about a month ago.”

“Oh…”

“Are you going to be okay?”

Of course he’d invite Castle’s daughter to the party for Sarah Grace if they ran into her. “Is she here?”

“Yeah, she came in a few minutes ago, she’s in the kitchen pouring wine.”

She wasn’t sure she’d go to see Alexis again. She hadn’t been particularly close with the girl; they did not have a stepmother-stepdaughter relationship, let alone a mother-daughter one. She went to Kate for career advice: Kate sometimes got the impression she resented her a bit, for taking away her father’s attention. Alexis had been kind, but kept Kate at arm’s length at the same time, although she was never sure why.

“It’s not too much, is it?” Ryan asked. “To be reminded of him?”

“No,” Kate lied. She didn’t know what she felt. “I’ve had my time to mourn him. Besides, I could get a drink.”

Instead of avoiding it, she went to the kitchen to confront her fear.

* * *

Alexis Castle had moved back home to her father’s loft after two years of avoidance. She and Pi had lived in Copenhagen, where she butchered Danish in a hashish shop, smoked her fair share of weed, and taken trips of a lifetime on the Eurorail for about a year before she and Pi broke up in spectacular fashion. After that, she lived like a gypsy around Europe, bumming people’s couches she had met in the crossroads of Copenhagen. When it all started looking the same, she went home to New York finally, and faced the mostly-empty loft, now that her Grams had her own hit sitcom called _Priscilla_ that filmed on the West Coast.

It had been hard to see what was left of her past that she had left behind. She felt echoes of her father and finally started talking to him.

She cried and told him how much she missed him, but eventually, the tears dried. She told him about the adventures she had, the break-up with Pi, told him how she was scared of the future, and then eventually told him about how she was going to re-enroll in Columbia and pick up where she left off and finish her degree, finally. She spent the first few weeks at home painting in what had once been where her father wrote his best-selling novels. She had gotten pressure to pick up her father’s old Nikki Heat manuscripts and finish them but had declined. Yet, she owned the rights, she could legally do it.

She had run into the Ryans one morning after drinking shots in honor of her father’s memory again. She had been pretty hungover, but had recognized them right away. She hoped Sarah Grace didn’t know what hungover people looked like. They had just gotten out of Sunday mass and were dressed for it, and Alexis was nursing a cup of coffee and a croissant behind sunglasses. They struck up a conversation, where she got invited to Sarah Grace’s third birthday. An opportunity to see her father’s old friends felt cathartic, so she agreed to it.

And here she was, drinking a beer in the kitchen rehashing the time her father almost had to shave his head and wear a dress to the Precinct with Esposito, and they were laughing over it when Kate Beckett walked in.

“Alexis?” she asked.

“Detective Beckett?” she cried, surprised. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Oh, it’s just Kate. Unless you get in trouble, and then it’s Captain Beckett,” she said, a smile cross her pretty face. “Can I get a hug?”

“Of course!” Alexis cried. She hugged her father’s fiancee, but felt something inside herself she didn’t like; it was a reminder of the unwanted crush she had on Kate as a teenager. She pushed it down in her gut.

“I just wanted to see you, since Ryan said you were here tonight. I lost track of you.”

“I know, I’m sorry. Do you want the long or the short story?”

“Go with the long,” Esposito said. “You want a drink?”

“A beer would be good.”

“We’ve got an IPA and a Amber from Sweetwater,” he said.

“The IPA, please. Thank you.” He cracked it open and handed it to her. “Okay, spill.”

“Well, I set down roots with Pi for about a year before I caught him cheating on me,” Alexis said, rolling her eyes. “I threw his clothes out the window and he took my phone and tossed it out. I lost a ton of phone numbers and addresses.”

“I bet that’s why we lost track of each other. You know, I have your father’s stairwell portrait hanging in my office.”

“You do?” she asked, surprised.

“Yeah, I do.”

“I took that picture, you know that?”

Kate looked shocked. “I never knew that! You could have told me!”

She shrugged. “It was easier to just let you go through and take stuff than to think about what I was letting you have.” Alexis noticed Esposito had disappeared from the kitchen, so it was just her and Kate. “I came back about a month ago.”

Kate nodded. “Did he leave any Easter Eggs?”

“Huh?”

“Like... funny things left around the apartment?”

“Oh. Well… like, the light sabers he left me,” she said. “And the catalytic converter from that Joss Whedon show. And, he left some of his last manuscripts that were unfinished with the outlines.”

“So you what how they end?”

She nodded. “Yep.”

“Are you going to finish them for him?” Kate asked.

“Um… maybe. I don’t know.”

“Are you staying in his old place?”

“Mmm-hmm. It didn’t seem so big when Gram was living with us, but now…” She laughed nervously. “I’m thinking about renting the rooms out. No creeps though. Maybe I’ll find some roommates when I go back to school.”

“You are? Columbia?”

Alexis nodded. “I re-enrolled.”

“Oh good for you!”

“Thanks,” she said, blushing.

“I think we all needed some time to recover,” Kate agreed. “Both of us.”

She nodded, agreeing.

“I’m just sorry we weren’t closer. I would have been there for you.”

Alexis felt that funny twinge back in her stomach at Kate’s suggestion. “I would have, too. I really let go of a lot of friendships when I was bumming around Europe.”

“Well, why don’t look me up sometime, we can go out to dinner or something.”

“Yeah, that sounds good,” Alexis lied. It left her feeling confused: she wanted to hang out with Detective Beckett, but she didn’t at the same time.

“Here,” she said, getting out her phone. “Is this still your number?” She held up her phone.

“Yep, it is,” Alexis said.

Kate hit send, and her number popped up on Alexis’ screen.

“Thanks, Detective- I mean, Kate. I’ll call you sometime.”

“I look forward to it.”

Those words struck Alexis as strange.

She stayed a little while longer, trying to drink a few more beers. She wandered downstairs around nine, swaying a bit, and arrived downstairs to hail a cab. She had a bottle of Goldschlagger she was going to break into tonight. When she arrived home, she turned on the lights and opened the bottle. Instead of getting out a shotglass, she got out a tumbler from the bar. She wasn’t going light tonight with the shot glasses.

After a small tumbler of the hard liquor, she laid out on the couch and let the room spin. This was a bad habit she got into in Europe; drinking herself to sleep.

This was much easier than confronting difficult feelings.

She remembered the detective, now captain. She had only been fifteen when she first met her. She had been a fixation of her father’s, then they became partners, and then fell in love. All the while she kept her distance. She didn’t get close to her father’s new girlfriends and kept up some walls for herself. Gina had taught her it was dumb to get close.

The reason, deep down, was that she had feelings for the detective. She found herself attracted to her. It was unwanted and not in the plan; Alexis always saw herself living a pretty, conservative life with a husband and two-point-three children with a career in law. But she couldn’t deny that she had had a few instances of same-sex attraction more than once in her life. The first one she remembered was being attracted to a girl in kindergarten; she was pretty and she was fascinated with her. She hadn’t known that was attraction. She went on through her life, and had attractions to boys, too. She hadn’t thought much of Beckett, other than she was really hot and very pretty, when her father first met her. But she was around often, and Alexis couldn’t deny the fascination.

On a drunken night sophomore year, she had been at a back-to-school party in the Upper West Side, and she and her friend Paige got drunk together while playing truth or dare in a large group. They had been dared by a pair of boys to kiss each other. Alexis had made the prerequisite reluctant grimace, but Paige leaned in and kissed her.

She hadn’t expected it to be just as exciting as kissing a boy.

They had sobered up and pretended to be pseudo-lesbians for fun, but Alexis enjoyed it a little but too much. On Halloween, she had confessed how she felt for Paige that night while Paige was drunk in hopes that her feelings were returned with the social lubricant of alcohol: and Paige had turned on her after her parents were called and she sobered up. Alexis was never certain if Paige knew how she felt, but had been pushed away.

She had been expecting it, up to a point. There were any out lesbians at Marlowe Prep.

But, then she met Ashley. Ashley filled the void and Alexis went back to thinking she was straight. She loved Ashley, and thought he was going to be the one. But he lost interest in her when he moved to Stanford and things became one-sided. Then there was Max, then Pi. The thought that she was bisexual had crossed her mind on multiple occasions; during those relationships with young men, she had been fascinated by women. She complained, although non-convincingly, while watching lesbian porn with Pi before sex. She did get turned on by it, but she wouldn’t admit it to him. The real reason they had broken up in Copenhagen was because he wanted to have sex with another girl who worked at the same hashish bar as Alexis. He wanted a threesome. She came home, and found them together, and for a split second, she thought about joining them just so she’d have an excuse to make love to a woman. It was betrayal to know that Pi had taken a secret she had finally confided in him after her father’s death and tried to take advantage of it: she confessed in a stoned stupor that she might be bisexual. Then, that night, she came to her senses and realized he was pressuring her into doing a threesome, something she swore she’d never do, just to get off to watching her with another woman, like they were novelties and she was having sex for his enjoyment, not her own. The rage hit her and she kicked the girl out, threw Pi’s things out the window into the alley, cursing him out, telling him to go to hell. He threw her phone out the window, calling her cunt, and eventually went down to get his clothes, since he was buck naked. She locked him out that night.

The break-up was messy and painful: she had to confront the other woman at work every day. She finally decided she had enough and toured through Europe, telling herself she did not have a same-sex attraction. She had gone through some condoms in every major city in Europe, truth be told. But when she was in Prague again, and a man she didn’t recognize hit on her in Czech, she was quite flattered. And then, he pointed out to her that they had had sex about eight months ago before she hopped on the Eurorail for Lyons. That was enough to make her realize she was drinking too much and fucking for validation, not because she wanted to. She had lost count of the number of men she had slept with in Europe, and it just seemed like time to come home.

She woke up to a raging headache and an excruciating thirst. She had long since moved into her father’s bedroom, where she kept Advil in the medicine cabinet. Once she took that, she went to the kitchen for a beer to ease her hangover. She vaguely remembered getting drunk at a child’s birthday party, and running into Kate Beckett, who was now a captain of her own police precinct.

She laid down in the big master bed and flipped on the TV, although she wasn’t thinking about what was on. It couldn’t distract her from what she had done after the Goldschlager hit her system last night in the dark; she unzipped her jeans and stuck her hand down her pants, pretending it was Kate Beckett’s long, slender hand. She had pretended it was Kate Beckett’s soft, silky lips against her own, and she had kissed her back eagerly in her fantasy, moans coming out of the back of her throat.

The shame hit her; for Heaven’s Sake, Kate Beckett was her late father’s fiancee. This was sick.

She had to stop drinking so much and put an end to this strange attraction she felt towards Kate. This was only survivor’s guilt over her father, wanting to forge a connection to the woman. Somehow, she was getting it mixed up in her head. The same-sex attraction had been some silly hormones in her teen years and a twisted sense of missing her mother, right? Alexis Harper Castle was straight, and she stood by that.

She’d have to iron this silly crush out once and for all. She picked up her phone and scrolled through until she found Kate’s number, and hit send.

* * *

Kate had spent the better part of the evening catching up with Ryan, Lanie, and Esposito. There had been a lot of laughs and some toasts, and finally, Sarah Grace was passed out. Jenny put her to bed, and Kate realized it was just them left at the party. Espo and Lanie gave her a ride home and she had to remind herself to play a little more than she worked. She was getting pretty boring.

In her apartment, there were Castle’s silly grown-man toys and some of his books from his bookshelf she had collected upon his death on a shelf on the wall. She’d always miss him, he had been her best friend. She got out her stash of whiskey and poured him a shot.

“I’ll always miss you, Richard Alexander Rogers Castle,” she sighed, toasting to him.

She had gone to bed soon after.

On Sunday mornings, she usually met her father after mass, and they played a game of chess in the park. She put on a pair of jeans and a short-sleeve top and took the subway to Central Park in uptown, stopping to get two coffees: a regular drip, black with Sweet n’Low for her father, and a latte with two pumps of sugar-free vanilla for herself. Her father was waiting at their usual spot.

“Hi, Katie,” he said, seeing her. “Ready to play?”

“Yes, sir,” she said, sitting down across from him. He got out his chess pieces.

“White or black?”

“Last week, I was black, so… white.” She set out their coffees.

He set out the pieces and she helped arrange them on the board, they started playing.

“So I take it your life’s still pretty boring these days?” he asked.

“Yep,” she said. “I saw my goddaughter last night.” She grinned.

“How is she?”

“Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous. She’s growing so fast!”

“Hey, good! Are you coming back to church any time soon?”

“Da-ad!”

“Hey, no harm in asking!”

They played a few more moves, and Kate finally brought up the subject: “I saw Castle’s daughter last night, too.”

“Oh, you did, did you?”

She nodded.

Her father was silent for a long time. He made a move, and Kate countered with a, “Check.”

He groaned softly.

“Were you okay?”

“With what?”

“Seeing Alexis?”

She shrugged. “Sweet kid. Just always kept me at a distance for some reason, I never got to become really motherly with her. She did a lot of cool things in Europe in the last year, travelled a lot.”

“I remember when you had the wanderlust, kid.”

She chuckled. “Yeah. I think it’s best to just get it all out of our systems when we’re young before settling down into a career.”

“It didn’t make you… sad or anything did it?” he moved his King.

Kate studied the board. “No sadder than usual. I guess I’m kind of moving on, now.”

“You know I worried about you.”

“I know,” she said. “Thank God I love my job so much, right?”

“Well, for me, I lost myself in alcohol. You, you lost yourself in work.”

Kate finally made her last move with her rook. “Checkmate.”

“Wait a second, Katie, this is not checkmate,” her father noted.

She grinned. “Yeah, it is. Love you, Dad. See ya.” She stood up and kissed her father on the forehead, picking up her purse. It was her day off, a beautiful day to enjoy the city and get some errands done.

As she sauntered over to the farmer’s market and shopped. There were gorgeous fruits and vegetables out, and a few refrigerated booths that held cheeses, meats, and fish. Kate decided to try to make her mother’s _poisson aigre-doux_ recipe from when she had been an Au Pair in Paris. She hadn’t treated herself to anything other than deli salads and take out the last few weeks when her phone rang.

Without thinking, she answered it, thinking it was the precinct. “Beckett.”

“Hi, Kate,” a tired-sounding female voice said on the other end of the line.

She checked the caller ID; it was Alexis. “Alexis? I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon!”

“Well, I didn’t either. But I was a little drunk last night when I saw you.”

“That’s okay, it was a party.”

“A child’s birthday party. Ugh, don’t remind me.”

Beckett laughed. “Well, we all do dumb things.”

“I was thinking we should meet for dinner sometime. Catch up, talk about Dad. I could show you some of the pictures I took while I was traveling Europe.”

“Oh, really? That sounds fun. Count me in. When do you want to meet?”

“Well, I don’t have a job right now and I’m not going to school, so what’s a good night for you.”

“This is actually my day off. I was going to make a recipe from my mother’s recipe box tonight, would you like to join me?”

“I can bring the wine.”

“Deal. I’m making fish, so bring a white at seven.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

“Do you know where my apartment is?”

“Actually…” she chuckled nervously. “I don’t think I can remember.”

“That’s okay, I’ll text it to you.”

“Sounds good.”

“Okay. Call me before you leave.”

“I will. Bye.”

“Bye.”

She spent the afternoon doing the prep work for the dinner she was planning. It felt good to do the things she loved doing that she had forgotten about. The truth was, she dated some, but it usually included a few dinners, some wine, sex, and then repeat until things just got boring and they broke up within a few weeks. To have someone over seemed exciting.

She decided her days off would be for making herself happy and doing the stuff she used to love before she got addicted to work. Around 6:30, she got a call from Alexis.

“I’m leaving my house and stopping at the store for some wine. Would a chardonnay do well?”

“Yes. It would be great.”

“Okay, see you in a few minutes.”

“Alright!”

She was still in her jeans and tank top, and the windows to her apartment were open. At six-fifty-eight, the door buzzed. “Alexis?” she asked, answering it.

“Hey, it’s me.”

“Good. Come on up.” She opened the door and went back to setting the table. A moment later, Alexis came in.

“Kate?”

“Hi, in the kitchen!”

The girl entered the room: she was wearing a cute peter-pan collared navy dress and a pair of ballet flats. Kate felt seriously underdressed, gazing at her outfit. It was pretty on her.

“Oh, I must look like a slob,” Kate chuckled, seeing her.

Alexis’ cheeks tinged red. “I thought… with the wine... “

“Who cares, right? Come on, let’s open it up and have a glass.” She got the wine bottle opener out and opened it, pouring a generous amount for each of them. “I’m excited that you’re back in the city. Have you heard from your Grams lately?”

“Oh, I have,” Alexis said, taking a sip as they sat down on the couch. “She’s good. Well, I hope she’s good. She misses Dad a lot. We both do.”

Kate nodded. “She calls me every year on my birthday, and always sends a card that she signs herself. She’s thoughtful like that.”

“Yeah, she is. She could farm it out to her assistants, but she doesn’t.”

“It’s nice that she thinks of me. She always tells me I would have been her favorite daughter-in-law. I’m sure she says that to Gina, too.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

“What?”

“She’s told me that before. About you. She loves you.”

“Oh!” Kate felt her heart melt for the Grande Dame. “Did you get to watch her show while you were in Europe?”

“Some, off pirated websites. That was one of the first things I did when I got back to New York; I did a binge-watch of _Priscilla_. She’s got such good chemistry with the actor who plays her son.”

“Yeah, no wonder it’s lasted so long,” Kate agreed, noticing Alexis had almost finished her glass. “Want some more?”

“Sure,” Alexis said. She got up to get the bottle of wine and saw that the alcohol level was pretty high, according to the label.

“Are you feeling it, yet?”

“Feeling what?”

“Pop Crush has a really high alcohol rate,” Kate noted.

“All the better to forget,” Alexis mumbled. “I don’t know how Americans do it; they have to drive everywhere all the time.”

“I remember. I spent a semester in Kiev.”

“Oh, that’s right!” Alexis cried. “I loved Kiev!”

“How much did it change since 2000?”

“Here,” Alexis said, getting her tablet out of her bag. She scrolled through the pictures. “Here’s Kiev. _Maidan Nezalezhnosti_.”

Kate studied the pictures, looking for the difference between what she remembered and what was there, now. “Looks almost completely the same,” she noted. “You know, my Russian never came in handy until I had to bail your father out of a high-stakes poker game from some Russian mobsters.”

“Oh really? Do tell.”

Kate told the story of how he almost got cement boots until she strode in, faking a Ukranian accent in a buttoned-up boyfriend cardigan and a pair of high heels, with her bra peeking out and how none of the mobsters could take their eyes off her cleavage, which had given her some advantage. “I saved his ass!”

By now, Alexis had drained her second glass of wine. At the rate she was going, she was going to finish the bottle before Kate had her second glass. “That was my father,” Alexis slurred. "Always in trouble." Her cheeks were flushed and her lips were a dark blush pink from the effects of alcohol. The way Alexis talked so freely while drinking made Kate kind of like her a lot more than the studious, high-strung kid she had known a few years back. Alexis had a wicked sense of humor, if not for the sadness she carried from losing her father. Alexis' cherry-red lips seemed perfectly kissable right now. With the right person. Not her, obviously.

Kate decided not to offer her another glass, but instead started on dinner.

They ate dinner and laughed and the conversation didn’t stop. It was the first time she had talked to anybody about Castle had not had to brush off her sad feelings. It felt like they were celebrating his life and legacy instead.

“You know, I always thought Castle would have wanted us to start a scholarship fund for exceptional writers,” Kate said. “To be his legacy.”

“Yeah? Me too!” Alexis cried, pointing drunkenly at her. She had indeed finished the bottle of wine after starting dinner. They had sat around talking until about eleven o’clock, and Kate had just noticed the hour.

“Why don’t we hang out again sometime, I’ve got to get to bed. Us old folks have work in the morning,” Kate said. “I hate pushing you out like this.”

“That’s fine,” Alexis said, checking her phone. “It is late, I need to be going.”

“Do you want me to call a cab?” Kate asked.

“If you wouldn’t mind,” Alexis admitted. “I’m really too drunk to ride the subway alone.”

“I understand,” Kate said, getting up to call a cab company. Once she was on the phone, she heard the plates crash onto her kitchen counter. She saw Alexis trying to take the plates to the sink. At least they weren’t broken. “...Yeah, right away.”

“Okay, gotcha. There should be someone there in less than five minutes.”

“Thank you!” she hung up. “Taxi’s on it’s way.”

“Thanks. I tried to be helpful.”

“Don’t worry, you were.”

Alexis picked up her purse and headed towards the door. “It was so nice catching up with you, Kate,” she admitted. “Thank you for having me over. We really do need to talk about starting that scholarship.”

Kate reached for the door to let her out. “Call me anytime.”

“I will,” Alexis said, looking up.

And at that moment, Kate realized Alexis was only a breath away from her lips: she could feel electricity. And a hunger in her eyes.

She shivered at the thought. Alexis was a pretty girl. She had gotten the sense from her a few times that there was a slight crush and fascination, but had written it off as her personally projecting her own thoughts onto her.

Kate had been with a few women in her time; the most recent one was a few months ago, but it hadn’t lasted, he first in 1999, when she was in college. That was around the time she had come to terms with her attraction to women as well as men; when she broke the news to her father when he entered the Twelve Step program, he had taken a few days to digest it, but when she told him it was not a phase, he accepted it. Castle had been a bit surprised when she admitted it to him, but had taken it in stride. They laughed when they realized they were both noticing the same woman and joked they’d threesome with her, but never did since they had agreed to monogamy. Kate had participated in a few threesomes in her wilder days, but had noticed they usually devolved into two of them going at it the third watching over to the side. And it was rarely mutual three ways around.

The only thing was that she never expected to have feelings for her late fiance’s daughter.

She could taste the sweetness of the wine off Alexis’ breath and the scent of her perfume; a light, sweet floral scent. She felt the urge to lean forward and kiss the girl just to see if she was being stupid or not, but held back. She saw the confusion wash over Alexis’ eyes and realized she was contemplating the same thing.

But it was wrong to force yourself on a drunk person, male or female. She tore herself back and partially hid her body behind the door. “I’m glad you came by, Alexis.”

The expression on Alexis’ face indicated she realized that she had just almost kissed Kate. “Oh,” she said, cheeks twingeing pink again. Kate found it adorable. “Yeah. Thanks for dinner.”

“And thank you for the wine, it was a good choice. I’ll see you later?”

“Yes.”

Kate leaned forward and kissed Alexis on the cheek in the most platonic way she was capable of and squeezed her shoulders, that being the only part of their bodies touching. “Take care. And get home safely.”

“I will. Goodnight, Dete- Kate.”

“Goodnight.”

She shut the door behind Alexis. She should have gone directly to the kitchen to dispose of what was left of dinner and load the dishes into the dishwasher, but that moment, the electricity, the sparks between their lips… it plagued her mind.

The mornings after she woke up at the loft after spending the night with Castle, she could have sworn she had caught Alexis checking her out. But she had pushed it from her mind; the heteronormative rules of society said that Alexis was straight. Castle had never considered her being a lesbian or bisexual; he’d have voiced those concerns with Kate. He was terrified of the young men who dated her. But what if he had turned a blind eye because his daughter was in the closet, somehow?

Kate had fought those feelings through middle school and high school towards some of the girls she hung out with. College had been a time of experimentation, but she still was not Out. She remembered kissing a girl with dreadlocks named Deanna in a field behind a house freshman year in college, only to insist she was not a lesbian, she was just fooling around for a guy’s attention. But that had been the biggest lie of them all; she had enjoyed the thrill of kissing Deanna. It was after her mother died that she came clean with herself, but not that she was announcing herself as bi everywhere she went. Instead, she only told the men she was in a relationship with, and the women she was interested in, if she got the vibe off them, too. She didn’t wear her sexuality like a hat. Nobody at her precinct knew, but that was because she insisted on keeping her private life private.

But Alexis had almost kissed her tonight. She wracked her brain for evidence that Alexis could have possibly been attracted to girls all this time to justify her suspicion. How did Alexis react to her friends? Was it different?

Kate didn’t want Alexis living a lie, but at the same time, she couldn’t be certain, either. But Alexis was not her responsibility: she had no relations or ties to the girl. She was just someone who was almost her stepmother.

And that was all she’d ever be.

Right?


	2. Plain Truths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The truth between Alexis and Kate comes out.

Alexis’ alarm clock went off and she groaned, rolling over. It was ten o’clock, and she needed to get up because she had an appointment with her accountant.

Ah, the life of a socialite.

She didn’t want to get up, due to her hangover, but she had to sign mortgage checks and utilities and tax documents. She didn’t give her accountant the free access to do those things because she didn’t want all of the money her father left her to be absconded with like her Gram’s had been.

She had to remember to get up earlier to paint, when the light was good, too. Today was going to be a bust. She figured it was safer just to sleep all afternoon and stay up all night and into the morning instead as she threw back the covers to get up, her head almost exploded.

“Jesus!” she moaned, clutching her temples. She needed a beer, but had run out over the weekend. She’d have to settle for coffee. She wasn’t sure what she wanted first: coffee or a shower. Either way, it was going to be tough.

She chose the shower, first. The Keurig only took a minute to brew.

She stripped out of her clothes from last night that she had crashed in and turned on the shower to scalding hot before stepping into it. That helped a bit with waking up.

Alexis knew she really needed to get her shit together. Really, she did. This partying all night was actually kind of lonely. A lot of people wanted to hang out with her just for her money, and sometimes, they were really convincing that they actually liked her for herself. But at the moment, she did not like herself very much, although her bullshit meter was off the charts and she could call it.

After the hot shower, she made a cup of coffee before drying her hair. If only she was as organized as she used to be, she’d have made a list of what she needed to talk about with her accountant today. There was something she was forgetting.

Once she was dressed, she went downstairs to catch a taxi. She put on her sunglasses against the light. It helped a little with how much the potholes in the road jostled the cab, she almost barfed from the motion.

Upon arrival, she twisted her hair up into a bun, securing it with a spin-pin as she walked into the office. Save for the sunglasses, she looked semi-normal in the mirror. She was called in, and the painfully, dreadfully boring process of reviewing her finances and her father’s estate with Hank. “It would help if you took the sunglasses off, Miss Castle,” he said as she sat down.

Annoyed, she removed them. Hank stared at her for a moment, but continued with explaining what she was signing over. Thank God she took a semester of accounting her sophomore year, otherwise, she’d be completely lost.

She signed off the checks and they balanced her account, putting money into her pocket account, which she would mostly blow on getting drunk.

“So that’s it?” she asked as Hank put away the checkbook ledger.

“Yes, that is,” he said. “Well, thank you for stopping by, Miss Castle, I hope you have a nice weekend.”

“Trust me I will,” she mumbled, standing up. It was noon by now, acceptable time to get a beer at lunch to ease the hangover, even if it was daydrinking… a sure sign she was an alcoholic, like getting drunk a child’s birthday party or at… “Oh wait! Hank! I thought of something!” She groaned and slapped her forehead. “My father’s fiancee and I were talking the other night, and she and I agreed we should start a memorial scholarship in my father’s name. You know, to honor his memory. I wanted to talk to you about that.”

“Oh, yeah. Okay,” Hank said as Alexis took the seat again.

He went over how scholarship funds were started and maintained, and the work that went into them. Alexis was proud she had remembered it.

She left the meeting feeling much better: so much so that she didn’t need to get a beer to ease her hangover, now.

She went to the closest pub to get a beer and a sandwich, though.

While enjoying her sandwich on the outside terrace in the pretty springtime weather, Alexis decided to send Kate a text message that she had approached her accountant about setting up the scholarship fund and wanted her to be a part of it.

Of course, that was only being polite.

She, embarrassingly, had gotten the urge to kiss her the night she had dinner over at her place. She had contacted her and spent an evening with her over dinner to squash out those pesky feelings once and for all. But in her inebriated state, she had gotten too close to Kate as she was leaving. She felt the embarrassing heat from her own body and only hoped Kate didn’t. For a moment, looking into her eyes, she almost did kiss her, but had lost her nerve. She couldn’t drink alone around Kate. Not at all. Texting would suffice for now.

Kate responded within a few minutes.

_That’s great! I’m excited about this. Let me know what’s happening next and if I can help._

_I’m planning on leaving work around seven, if nothing goes wrong. Call me then._

* * *

At the last minute, Kate was invited to Sarah Grace’s ballet recital. She honestly had more entertaining adult things to do, but this was her goddaughter. She was growing up before her very eyes, and she had been missing it.

The recital was in one of the public school’s auditoriums. Kate sneaked in right as the lights went down and the ballet teacher started her opening speech and found Ryan and Jenny and sat with them.

It was cute, and Kate enjoyed it for that. She had danced with the American Ballet Theatre growing up, but this was a good start with helping children develop motor skills.

When Sarah Grace’s class came on, they danced to Bushel and a Peck, dressed in barnyard animal costumes. Sarah Grace was the little brown chicken, and she hammed it up while Ryan filmed it on his phone.

A few more classes danced and once it was over, the whole school took a bow, and the light came up on the house. Sarah Grace came down the steps to the house and located her parents almost immediately. “Aunt Katie!” she squealed. “Hi!”

“Oh, my little chick, you’re so cute! Give me a hug!”

Sarah Grace hopped up into Kate’s arms.

“You were the best dancer out there on the stage,” she assured her goddaughter, who beamed proudly.

“I am good!” Sarah Grace agreed.

“I heard about the scholarship that you and Alexis are trying to start,” Ryan said. “You don’t know how happy that makes me to know that you’re doing that.”

“Oh really?” Kate asked, still holding Sarah Grace. “SG, I’m going to put you down, now, okay?’  
“Okay!”

“We’d love to have you and Jenny on the committee,” she said. “You’d just have to read the applications.”

“I’m up for it,” Jenny said. “It’s the least we can do to honor him.”

“He was a best friend. To all of our group,” Ryan agreed. “We’d be honored.”

“Good,” Kate said, getting her phone out. She texted Alexis to let her know the Ryans had agreed. “Are we going out to celebrate Sarah Grace’s recital?”

“Yeah, she wanted to go out for ice cream,” Jenny said, grinning.

After ice cream, Kate went home to have a glass of wine and relax. Right as she was walking into her place, she got a phone call. It was from Alexis’ number.

“Beckett.”

“Oh. Hey.”

There was a long pause on the line.

“Alexis?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, sorry.”

Was the girl drunk?

“Are you alright?"

“Yeah, I’m fine, I was trying to call a friend I was texting, but I called you by accident, I think.”

“Oh okay. Well, do you need something?”

“Um, actually….” she slurred. “A ride home?”

“Okay, where are you?”

“I’m in The Waterhouse in SoHo and there’s no cabs around. Do you think I should take the subway?”

“No, I’ll be there in a minute. Don’t go anywhere. Bye.”

She turned around and went to her car to find Alexis. The Waterhouse was a small bar in SoHo, and Alexis was not hard to find, it was so empty. Alexis was sitting at the bar, nursing a clear drink that looked like a martini while talking to the bartender.

“Alexis,” Kate called.

She turned her whole body, hardly in control. “Hey! Kate! Come here and meet Eric!”

“Hi,” Kate said. The bartender was handsome in an early-thirties kind of way. She smiled at him.

“Hi,” he said. “You’re a friend of Alexis’?”

“In an alternate universe, I’d be her stepmother,” Kate said, find the insinuation funny. “But in this universe, I’m her sober ride home.”

“Oh good. The taxi situation out there is pretty shitty tonight with the rain and all.”

“I wouldn’t let my girl get soaked,” she said. “Let’s go, Lex.”

“Bye, Eric!” Alexis said a little too loudly. “See you tomorrow!”

Alexis and Kate went out to her car, which was parked close by.

“Thank you for picking me up,” she slurred.

“You’re welcome.”

“I was going to call my friend Kelsey, but that didn’t work out. I got left behind by my group.”

Kate, after seeing this kind of stuff with her father, had heard this line before.

“Look, Alexis… if you’re hanging out with friends that do nothing but drink with you, you might be hanging out with the wrong kinds of friends,” she offered quietly. “Another thing: your bartender is not your friend.”

“Oh God no,” Alexis agreed. “Eric’s sweet, but… he’s gay.”

Kate bristled at that comment. “So what? I’m just letting you know that he’s just working and he’s probably got his own friends outside of the bar.”

“You weren’t insinuating I’d go home with him?”

“No, not all. Were you insinuating you wouldn’t be friends with him because he’s gay?”

“No, not at all!” Alexis cried, horrified. “I just had a few gay friends of my own when I went to Columbia and…”

“And?”

Alexis shrugged.

“Do you have a problem with people who had a same-sex attraction?”

“Well, no… but… I don’t like the drama that comes with flamboyant gay men, sometimes.”

“But they’re not all like that.”

“I know.”

“You’re just drunk talking right now,” Kate said. “You’ll feel differently in the morning.”

“Hope so,” she mumbled. “Men suck. I mean, they just want you because you’ve got a huge inheritance, and you’ll always get the bill. I swear to God, sometimes I think being a lesbian would be better, but then again, there’s greedy ones in there, too.”

“It’s tough all over,” Kate said.  
“You say that like you speak from experience.”

It didn’t hurt anything to tell her the truth. “If you didn’t guess while I was with your father, I actually am bi. So yes, I do. You have the same basic problems with both sexes.”

Alexis’s head shot up. “Did I hear you correctly?”

“Yes. If you heard me say that I was bisexual.”

“Wow… I mean, all this time…” Alexis giggled.

“You say that like you’ve never known one before.”

“I have, but… why did you keep it a secret from me all this time?”

“Well, it was a need-to-know kind of thing,” she said, shrugging. “I didn’t see how it affected anything in our relationship, so I never saw the need to tell you.”

“I suspected a few times, but…” her eyes rolled up in her head.

“Are you curious?”

Alexis bit her lip, and then answered. “No. Well, maybe just a little bit.”

“I’m so sure you want to hear about my relationship with your father.”

“Did you have affairs on the side? With other women? While you were with him? Did he know about them?”

“You’re assuming an awful lot. No, I didn’t. Our relationship was closed, but he knew.”

“He knew?” she repeated, sounding sad.

“Mmm-hmm,” she said, nodding.

“What’s it like? To be able to do everybody?”

Kate felt some offense for that suggestion. “Excuse you, I don’t have sex with every person I come across, thank you, nor am I attracted to everyone.”

“I didn’t mean it like that-”

“I may be attracted to women as well as men, but I have standards. Bisexuals can be picky, you know.”

“Well… I guess.” Alexis sat in an embarrassed silence for a moment. “How did you know?”

She shrugged. “I just always kind of new that I liked girls as much as boys when I was kid. But I was in the closet until college. In school, there was always the different best friends that I was so crazy about, and I wanted to be close to her, and I couldn’t understand why she wanted to break off and away from me when it seemed so natural. I realized that my need for companionship was romantic in nature, too, and I tried to lie to myself that I was straight… it was the biggest and most dangerous of lies. If you ever have questions like that, just come to me.”

“I don’t.” Alexis said quickly.

“Well, I thought… the other night at my place, that you were going to kiss me after dinner.”

“I would never!” Alexis cried, aghast.

“That’s why I pulled away from you. One of the reasons. But if you’re curious and want to talk to me about it as a voice of experience, I’m here for you.”

Alexis didn’t respond.

She pulled up in front of Castle’s old building, finding a good spot. “Here,” she offered. “We’re here.”

“Oh.... well, Kate actually… I’ve wondered,” Alexis said softly. “Would you at least kiss me so I can find out?”

Kate felt goosebumps rise across her skin. Was her almost-stepdaughter proposing they kiss, just to experiment? She gazed into Alexis’ eyes: they were not focusing.

“Alexis, I thought that you might feel that way… Not when you’re drunk.”

Alexis’ lips parted in surprise. The best option was to let her down easy, instead. She cupped the girl’s cheek, and she took her wrist. Kate ran her thumb over her lower lip, very gently, very slowly. Her lips were soft, if not sticky from her lip gloss. She had been right, and she wanted to kiss her. She could only imagine what they felt like on her own, and that sent another shiver down her spine. “That was the other reason I didn’t let you kiss me as you were leaving my apartment. There’s no reason to take advantage of you. Goodnight, Alexis.”

Alexis kissed the palm of her hand, and then pulled away. She got out of the car without a word and went into the apartment building.

Kate watched her, but had never felt so turned on by a simple gesture.

It was alway the women that paid attention to the little things when it came to seduction. Men just got an erection and wanted you to take off your clothes and that was it. She liked the way it felt to be seduced by a man, though, she felt girly and feminine and dainty, and the submissive part of it turned her on, giving up control. But with women, she liked how soft they were, their curves, unlike her own body, with was athletic and angular. During foreplay and after the act, they were better about communication. Men not so much, but if they didn’t have to be so damn handsome… But women… girls like Alexis, little dainty things, that were like designer cupcakes… Fuck. If she didn’t want to explore her, suddenly, touch her sides, run her hands over her arms and shoulders, massage her calves, her back, to run her fingers through her hair. She was not “confused”. Certain women were just as tempting as men. And she finally felt a burning attraction to Alexis that made her feel hot all over.

She really hoped Alexis called when she sobered up.

* * *

Alexis shuddered, feeling the arousal through her body. Why had Kate just touched her face like that? Why was it that she couldn’t wait to sober up and find Kate? She had to admit to herself that she shouldn’t feel that way. Was it just lack of sex since she got back to New York?

This couldn’t be real. She had never had her advances towards a woman be returned before. How was this happening? She never expected Kate to be the first one to return her feelings.

As she stripped naked upon entering her apartment and got into the bed, her phone chimed.

There was a text message from Kate.

_I was serious about what I said, if you’re still interested sober._

She felt like her whole body was tingling.

“Yes,” she whispered to herself, sitting down on the bed, pressing the phone to her chest. “Yes.”


	3. Other Plans

Kate hadn’t heard from Alexis in the morning, much to her chagrin. Of course, Alexis was drinking so much lately, she might have blacked out the ride home. She hadn’t walked in a straight line back to her building once she got out of the car, but she had seen the text message. Alexis had all but admitted she was bisexual last night. For some dumb reason, Kate was hoping it was true. Yes, Alexis was an heiress, technically, people were like that. But beside that, she was very pretty and very funny. Any young man in New York would be lucky to have her.

But if she considered that Alexis could be in the closet, and she wanted to ease the transition for her and be a friend and mentor. Alexis was way too young for Kate’s tastes as well. Well, she had to admit to herself, that she still looked at Alexis and saw her late partner’s teenage daughter, not the twenty-three-year-old who had traveled Europe extensively.

When she went to refill her coffee at work on Monday, she got a text message from her.

_I’m glad you were there for me last night. Do you want to go out sometime? Lunch or brunch, maybe?_

She felt a strange flutter in her stomach, one she usually only got with people she was interested in. It was strange to be interested in Alexis.

Back in her office, she typed a response back:

_Unless you want to get up super-early, I don’t think I’d be much of a breakfast date until the weekend. ;) Are you serious about hanging out, just us?_

Alexis texted her back: _I guess that depends on what ‘hanging out’ actually ends up being._

A moment later, she texted Kate again: _Could I cook for you? For dinner?_

Kate smiled to herself. _Yes. I’d like that._

 _Mi casa or tu casa?_ Alexis responded.

She didn’t like the idea of going over to Castle’s old loft right now. Alexis told her about how she “felt” her father’s presence in the loft, and she didn’t want to risk that just yet.

 _My place,_ she responded. _7pm._

She wasn’t sure if she wanted to pursue something with Alexis or just be a friend and mentor, but it was going to play it by ear tonight. She had to.

* * *

Alexis held the grocery sack tightly in her arms as she buzzed the door to Kate’s apartment building.

“Alexis?”

“Hi,” she said.

“I’m letting you up.” the door buzzed again and Alexis was able to open it.

She took the elevator to the fourth floor, feeling nervous. When she was younger, she’d never go over to a man’s house on the first date, not with romantic intentions. Things had changed in Europe, but this was like being a virgin again.

The door to Kate’s apartment was open just a bit, and she walked in. “Hello?”

“Hi,” Kate responded, coming out of the bedroom. Unlike the t-shirt and jeans from the last visit to her place, she was wearing a pair of black yoga pants, a light green pastel camisole, and a light green v-neck cashmere wrap sweater. She smiled. “Glad you’re here. I’ve got all the skillets and pans out, do you want some help?”

“Sure,” Alexis said. She went to the kitchen and set down the bag, unpacking it.

“What are we making?” Kate asked.

“Ravioli in a mushroom and chicken sauce,” Alexis said. “I brought some chardonnay, too.”

“I keep forgetting that you’re old enough to buy wine now,” she said, rolling her eyes. She offered Alexis a grin.

“I’m still a kid to you?”

She smirked to herself. “Yeah. Always. Sorry.”

Alexis felt a little disappointed. She’d have liked it if Kate thought of her as an adult. A viable adult that she could be attracted to.

She made the mushroom sauce from a roux while Kate poured the wine and boiled the ravioli. They talked about random things, but never broached the subject of same-sex attraction. When they sat down on the couch to eat dinner and turn on the news, that was when it came up.

“You know, Alexis, it’s okay with me if you like women, too. If you only liked women, that would be fine as well.”

Alexis felt a hot blush cover her cheeks. “I just want to know… how do you feel about me?”

“You’re really young, honey. I guess I’ll always see you as young. I hate saying that. But I can see why you’re the most beautiful thing and anybody who’d reject you would be a fool.”

“So you don’t like me after all?”

“No, I do,” she said softly, reaching over to stroke a lock of hair out of Alexis’ forehead. “You’ll just always be my late fiance’s daughter in my mind, that’s all.”

Alexis felt the dark sting of rejection. That was an excuse.

“Look at me,” Kate said gently. Alexis lifted her eyes. “There’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’re still the same person, just… honest.”

“I don’t know,” Alexis whispered. “I don’t know if I am.”

“There’s nothing I can do that’s going to convince you either way.”

“Not even kiss me?”

She shook her head. “No.”

“I guess you were leading me on in the car-”

Kate closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. “Alright. Just this once, Alexis,” she said, opening her eyes. “But it’s up to you if you’re really bisexual or not. Nobody can decide that for you, okay? And this doesn’t mean anything.”

Alexis was elated. “Alright,” she agreed. She ran her tongue of her lips to wet them and carefully reached up to Kate’s shoulders. Kate began to lean in, but hesitated.

“Close your eyes,” she murmurred. Alexis did, and felt cool hands pressed against the sides of her face. She could feel Kate’s breath against her cheek, and then her soft, silken lips against her own.

Her heart almost burst out of her chest it was pounding so hard. She was scared to move, she was trembling beneath Kate’s mouth, and felt her lips catch her lower lip and her tongue dragged across it. Alexis opened her mouth and let her tongue drag against the tip of her own. She honestly thought she’d die from the contact, she was shaking so hard. Kate’s tongue slipped back from her mouth, and she shuddered.

“Oh, Kate,” she whispered, afraid to open her eyes. She felt Kate’s forehead press against hers. “That was wonderful.”

“Yeah…” Kate muttered. She peeked under her lashes, and all she could see what her nose and and her mouth. “Do you wanna try one more?”

“Yeah.”

Kate’s arms wrapped around her and pulled her close, She could feel the curve of Kate’s breasts against her own through their tops and they began to kiss again, a bit more passionately, if that was even possible. Alexis was in heaven; the world was spinning, and it was beautiful. She continued to kiss her, pressing her mouth open, but Kate pulled away, suddenly. “I said one more. Not make out, Alexis.”

Alexis opened her eyes. “I… I’m sorry,” she blushed.

“Don’t be. You almost made me change my mind.”

“I wish you would.”

“Just tonight, okay?”

Kate let Alexis kiss her, lowering her down onto the couch to lay down on top of Kate. Kate’s hands roamed her back, and through her hair, pushing it out of her face. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, but they made out on the couch, daring to caress each other’s breast through their clothes. Alexis felt hot moisture pooling between her thighs, wishing they’d go further. She’d settle for this tonight, though.

* * *

Kate had only intended to kiss her once to see if it would make Alexis recognize how attracted she was to women. One more kiss, turned into a full-on make-out session. They weren’t terribly familiar with each other’s bodies, but she pulled the redhead close. Alexis was everything she liked in women; an intricate, delicately decorated cupcake, sweet and beautiful and she couldn’t get enough. Before she knew it, her hand brushed Alexis’ breast. It felt full and warm under her hand. Alexis took her hand and pressed it to her breast completely, and she stroked around with her thumb to see if she could feel her nipple through the layers of clothes.

“Okay,” Kate finally whispered. “That’s good.”

A whine escaped Alexis’ mouth. “That’s it?” She lifted her head.

“Yes,” she said. “Sorry, cupcake.”

“I kind of like that nickname,” Alexis giggled, sitting up on top her.

“Look, I said one kiss, and it morphed into that. No more…” Alexis looked a little frustrated. “It was good. I think you are going to break some hearts.”

“I’d never break yours,” she whispered, bending over to kiss Kate again.

“No,” Kate said, trying to press a finger to her lips, but she lost any gumpton to do so. She let Alexis kiss her again.

They spent the rest of the evening making out until Kate finally had to either offer her a place to sleep or to kick her out.

“Alright, honey... “ Kate whispered between kisses. “Stop. Stop!”

“I’m sorry!” Alexis cried, lifting her head her lips swollen. “I don’t ever want to stop kissing you.”

She didn’t want to lead Alexis on, but she enjoyed making out with her. “I feel like complete pedophile right now.”

“I’m of age.”

“This was so wrong.”

“Don’t think like that. Kate, Dad’s dead. He’s been dead for a while.” Alexis pressed her hand to the center of Kate’s chest, between her breasts. “I know you love him, but he’s gone. I loved him, too. He was my rock. Why else do you think I flitted around Europe for so long?”

She felt her heart pound against Alexis’ hand. “I know. It took me a long time to get over him.”

“Me too.” Alexis laid down on top of her, and Kate slipped her arms around her. They rested like that for a long time. “I’ve either gotta kick you out for the night or you can sleep over.”

“Like-”

“Don’t get any ideas,” Kate interrupted. A few minutes later, they got up, and Kate took her to the bedroom. She dug through her dresser drawers to find a pair of pajama pants and a top for Alexis to sleep in, and then her own pajamas. “Here,” she said, handing over the remote to the bedroom TV. “I’ve got HBO. I’m going to go take a shower.”

She went into the bathroom and turned on the cold water: she really needed it right now. After freezing herself, she went back to the bedroom to find Alexis dressed in her pajamas and in the bed. The TV was on to Kimmel and Alexis smiled shyly at her. “So I guess this is a grown-up sleepover?”

“Yeah,” Kate said, toweling off her damp hair before getting into the bed with Alexis. “I laid out an extra toothbrush on the bathroom counter. You’re welcome to it.”

“Alright.”

Kate turned out the lights and watched Kimmel while Alexis brushed her teeth. A few minutes later, Alexis climbed back into the bed.

“Can I get a kiss goodnight?” she asked, biting her lower lip.  
“You’re killing me,” Kate laughed, and leaned forward to kiss her again.

They kissed for a long time before turning off the TV and making out in the darkened room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be some steamier scenes coming up, soon, promise, but I can't promise them for a few more days.


	4. Kiss and Make Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate tries to let Alexis down gently.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't own Castle or the characters. I'm just being perverted with them. My biggest apology here is that I had to write the third part in 1st person omniscient, which I'm not very good at, but I realized I needed to do it this way instead of trying to tell it from each of their points of view twice and fucking that up. I hope you enjoy!

Alexis was on top of her, kissing her way up her neck. They had started necking last night, it Kate was frustrated that she’d have hickeys on her neck when they had been making out. Luckily, she had yellow oil-base concealer in her bathroom. She could feel the heat from Alexis’ crotch through the hips of her pajama pants and her hips were rocking back and forth. She moaned softly.

“Why are you doing this to me?” Kate murmured to the red-headed woman straddling her lap this morning as she was laying in the bed.

“Because of this,” Alexis said, tugging her top off of over her head slowly, revealing cute blush-pink nipples against lily-white breasts.

Kate couldn’t conceal the moan that came out of her mouth.

“I want to see yours,” she whispered. “Take off your top.”

Her fingers pushed under the hem of Kate’s tank top and dragged up her rib cage.

It was wrong, but it felt so right…

“Kate?” Alexis asked.

Kate opened her eyes and saw that Alexis was asleep in the bed beside her, still dressed, and it was still dark out. Her eyes were slowly opening, and Kate realized she had been having a sex dream. How embarrassing. Alexis moaned slightly.

“What’s the matter, cupcake?” Kate asked, sensing Alexis’s distress.

“I… Kate, do you have something hard to drink?” she asked, sitting up.

“I-- I do. Are you okay?”

“Just some insomnia. A few shots of whiskey can put me right to sleep.”

“Alright, let me go get a double.”

Kate got out of bed and went to the kitchen to pour a double for her. She brought it back, and Alexis was sitting up in the bed. “Here,” she said.

Alexis took the double in two big swigs and groaned slightly at the feeling of the alcohol burning her throat on the way down. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Kate climbed into the bed and took Alexis into her arms, kissing her forehead. She looked a little sick. “Are you okay?”

“No, not really. I just didn’t drink all day so I could be here, sober with you.”

“Feeling better now? Soon?”

“Yeah, soon.”

She snuggled into Kate, and they laid back down together. She noticed that neither one of them was wearing bra, just like in her fantasy. She wasn’t sure Alexis was ready for fucking another woman, yet: she wasn’t ready for that with her, either, even if she was having sex dreams.

She felt Alexis’ breathing begin to lengthen, and knew she had fallen back asleep. Kate could not, though.

What was she doing? What would Castle say if he hadn’t died? The events had traumatized her; she had been put on administrative sick leave with pay after seeing the stray bullet fly into his chest, and had started seeing a police psychiatrist to deal with the events. She went on Wellbutrin, which had taken her over a year to get off of, just to keep sane. In some twisted way, taking Alexis in tonight felt kind of like she was taking over for Castle in taking care of her. But mentoring her through coming out as bi, that was going to be hard. She didn’t anticipate Alexis being bisexual until that almost-kiss. And after making out with her tonight, it was fairly obvious that she’d have her first woman soon enough.

But Kate had to protect her from the way people treated bisexual; ambivalence, anger, claims they were shallow and selfish people trying to get attention, confused, the list went on.

Castle had been so understanding. He made jokes about it when she confessed it to him, but very quickly laid down the boundaries: was she open to threesome with another woman or was that off the table? Did she want a monogamous relationship or open? The big difference between him and the other men she slept with, he wanted to communicate. That was a nice thing about writers, she supposed. And she had to do that now for Alexis; teach her the ways of those who loved both sexes, what to look out for, and when to tell. She hoped Alexis wouldn’t be one of those annoying bisexuals who had to announce their sexuality everywhere they went.

* * *

Alexis woke up when Kate’s alarm went off. The older woman sat up in bed and she opened her eyes.

“I’m gonna get ready for work,” she said, kissing Alexis on the forehead. “You get up and leave when you’re ready. My house is your house.”

“Okay,” she replied, sleepily, and closed her eyes. “Have a good day at work.”

She rolled over and went back to sleep.

When she did wake up, the apartment was lit up with daylight and still. She could hear the traffic of New York outside, too. She sat up.

She had spent the night with Kate. Just kissing her was beautiful. Then the thought struck her; if she actually liked kissing her, that meant she liked women, too.

No, that was not true. But, it kind of was. She didn’t want the label of that word, the stigma, the attitude that she was desperate or a nympho so she had lowered standards. Kate lived without it, for the most part, because she didn’t tell everyone, just people that cared about her. She rolled over and squeezed Kate’s pillow, burying her face in the scent of her shampoo. She laid there for a few minutes and pretended she was holding Kate.

Finally, she sat up and rubbed the sleep out of her eyes. She honestly didn’t have any real plans today, asides from her Grams’ TV show being on tonight. She looked around Kate’s bedroom; it wasn’t messy like her own, there weren’t piles of dirty clothes on the floor or stacks of books, they were all neatly put into the bookshelves by alphabetic order, although there was a copy of _Normandy Red Cross_ by Hettie Lindsley on the nightstand with a bookmark in it.

She got out of the bed and went to the bathroom to pee. She was all alone at Kate’s, and her curiosity got the better of her. She started peeking in the drawers, the medicine cabinets, to find a jackrabbit vibrator, a box of condoms, and a bottle of KY, which made her giggle. Kate was just like her. There were a few more sex toys in there, like love beads and an anal vibrator and a cock ring. To her surprise, she saw something she never expected: a double-ended vibrator, meant for partner penetration. She paled at the thought, her panties drenching themselves when she found the method of twisting it open and two double-A batteries fell out.

In the medicine cabinet, she saw a prescription for Wellbutrin and Buspar. She knew enough to know that those were antidepressant and antianxiety medicines, having them combined probably meant she was dealing with some heavy shit. So was Alexis, but she hadn’t had much counseling or medical care since her father died. The idea of going to a therapist terrified her.

In the kitchen after she brushed her teeth, she checked for coffee. Kate didn’t have Keurig and the coffee had gotten cold since it was almost eleven. She opened up the fridge to see a carton of expired eggs and a few take-away boxes. The skillet and pot were dirty, and Alexis felt a little bad; she hadn’t clean up last night. The dirty dishes were still out. She felt a little guilty, so she turned on the faucet to let it heat up and gathered the dirty items to scrub clean and set them out to dry. The mushroom sauce had dried and gotten crusty on the plates, but the wine glasses had to be washed again, because Alexis had let them air dry and there were water spots on them.

She wandered around Kate’s apartment, looking at the decor and the things she had up on the wall: her diploma from Stanford, her graduation from the Police training school, the awards she had won, and the picture of a woman who looked familiar.

Alexis had seen this picture before, she couldn’t remember where.

There was a picture of Alexis’ father in a few spots around the apartment; it made Alexis sad for a moment. She had put away all of the pictures of her father from sight in her own place, so she didn’t have to look at him. She saw the familiar lady again with a little girl in a ballerina’s leotard, tights, and a tutu standing gracefully in first position, all poised and pretty, and it struck her: it was Johanna Beckett and the little ballerina was Kate. There were more pictures of Kate, random ones of her dressed in cold-weather clothes and sunglasses, standing on a beach, other ones of her from partying and hanging out with friends, and then Alexis saw the picture of a naked woman in shadows, her back turned, sitting on the side of her hip, part of her ass exposed, her face turned three quarters away from the camera. She felt a little hot looking at that, and she recognized the woman in this black-and-white photo was Kate. A curvier, heavier Kate, maybe by ten or fifteen extra pounds. Kate’s ass was a bit smaller, now, but at the most, she was pushing a size six here. But she was still breath-taking. Alexis felt like she wasn’t supposed to see this, but had. She wished she could take the picture home and paint the curve of her hip, the semi-profile of her face, the muscles on her back. Why had Kate lost weight? Was it all the police training? She got out her phone and took a picture of the picture. She really had to get up early for the better lighting in the future.

She went back to the bathroom and took a hot shower in the porcelain, claw-foot bathtub. It was like something out of a Victorian porno it was so nice. Her bathroom at home had an enormous two-person tub in it, but it was all modern. She liked how cold the porcelain was against her feet, and wished she had thought to take a bath instead. As she wet her hair down. She was no stranger to showering with the men she slept with; Pi had been the first boyfriend to insist on that with her to save water. The naughty idea of indulging in a shower with the woman she had made out with last night made her weak in the knees, especially if that dual-ended toy was waterproof.

She squirted out a dollop of shampoo out of Kate’s shampoo bottle; she’d smell like Kate, which made her smile.

After she got out of the shower, she found Kate’s lotion, which she used on herself. This apartment was so dry, she noticed. She found her clothes folded neatly in the chair across from the bed. She decided to go commando and stuffed her dirty panties into her purse instead of wear them again to get some coffee and to get home.

She left the apartment with a better sense of who Kate was. Kate was not an open book, that was for certain. But Kate felt a little less like an untouchable superhero and more like a regular, flawed human being to Alexis, now. 

* * *

 “Your ass is like a cupcake,” Kate teased Alexis. “That’s why I call you that.”

“You’ve never seen it completely bare,” Alexis responded. “Do you want to?”

The last three weeks had been excruciating, but a pleasure-filled kind of pain. Kate had laid down the boundaries with Alexis. The attraction between the two of them was undeniable and unavoidable: they were around each other all the time when she was off from work these days. Alexis needed company that didn’t revolve around partying. Kate didn’t mind being there for her, but it was getting harder and harder to resist her. They didn’t make out, but there were moments where they’d hold each other for whatever reason, and the occasional almost platonic kisses. They’d hold hands under the table during dinner sometimes if they went out to eat. These were the kind of things she’d do with her straight girlfriends anyway. Kate made sure she didn’t have a lot of time to relax alone with her, because things would quickly deteriorate if she wasn’t careful. There were also the suggestive and flirty text message conversations between the two of them that could have very easily been interpreted as an affectionate and close friendship between two women.

“No, I don’t want to see your butt,” Kate replied, sorting through her mail. “I’d like to be hungry at dinner.”

“My butt’s unappetizing to you?”

“No, I didn’t say that, I’d just be hungry for something else if I saw it,” she murmurred, slipping an arm around Alexis’ waist and kissing her cheek. “Come on, let’s go, I’m hungry! Sushi!” She tossed the junk mail advertisements into her kitchen trash can and took Alexis’ hand to guide her out of her apartment. She told Alexis about her day at the Precinct as they walked down the street together, arm-in-arm, to the sushi bar in her neighborhood that Kate frequented whenever she had a ‘sushi attack.’ It had a rotating sushi bar where you could pick up a plate with a sushi roll of your choice that rolled past your booth, and the prices weren’t so bad, either. Granted that she knew the health inspector, they gave her a discount when they had finished the meal.

“I got this,” Kate said, getting out her wallet from her purse, letting go of Alexis’ hand.

While she and Alexis usually split the check, she wanted to make sure Alexis’s portion of it got the discount. And treating her sometimes was what a mentor would do anyway. When the server came around for her card, her phone rang. She picked it up on the third ring. “Beckett.”

“Hey, Captain,” a serious voice responded on the other line. “I’m glad I got in touch with you. It’s Flanigan.”

“Hey,” she said. Flanigan was one of the uniformed officers. “Everything alright at the station?”

“Actually, no. O’Rouke was shot.”

Kate’s heart leapt into her mouth. “Is he alright?”

“No. Dead upon arrival. We caught the guy that shot him, but…”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “I’m going to come in for the press release in a few minutes, I’m just finishing up dinner. Thanks for the update.”

“See you soon, Cap.”

She hung up.

“Do you have to go?” Alexis asked.

Kate nodded, not sure if she could believe it all herself. “Yes. One of my uniforms just got shot and killed.”

“Oh, Kate, I’m so sorry!” Alexis cried, looking horrified.

Kate shook her head. “I’ve got to go. Call me later?”

“Sure,” Alexis said as she got up. She kissed Alexis on the temple as she got up and the server came back with her ticket to sign.

This was disturbing in her job: the loss of a member of her precinct’s family. She had a job to do, though. The press would be eating this up like after-dinner mints in no time at all. She owed it to O’Rourke’s family to keep them from speculating too much.

She went into her office and flipped on the lights. She had to see all of this through. It was going to be a long night...

In the morning, after drafting a statement to the press and going to visit O’Rouke’s widow at the hospital to extend her sympathies, she went home to get some rest, finally. She finally checked her phone, and Alexis had texted her to see if she was out of the office, yet.

_I just got home. I’m going to crash, but I’ve got the visitation, and I was asked to eulogize at the funeral._

Alexis texted her a moment later when she had poured a glass of wine and had stripped out of her workpants and was running a bath. _Do you want me to come over?_

As much as Kate would have enjoyed Aexis’ company right now, she was certain things would not stay platonic between the two of them if she came over tonight.

 _I’ve got to write the eulogy, too. I’ll call you soon. Right now, I’m going to sleep_ , she texted back. She sighed, not liking that she was having to push Alexis away, but she was feeling very vulnerable. In vulnerable moments, she might let Alexis too far in and it would not be good for the boundaries she was trying to lay down. Being that she was the only person who knew Alexis was finally delving into her same-sex attraction with her, it was not wise to accept comfort from her right now. It was just too soon. And she did not want things to get romantic or sexual just yet, and they were bound to right now while she was feeling this raw. She was the strong one, the leader in this relationship, being the unassigned mentor, and Alexis was the malleable, vulnerable one she was shaping and guiding. To see Kate in a mourning state like this was not a good idea. Kate wasn’t sure she was strong enough to keep up the boundaries.

 _I’m here if you want to practice your speech on an audience,_ Alexis texted back.

Kate smiled. _You’re sweet to offer._ She replied, but didn’t invite her over.

She stripped down naked and grabbed her book off her nightstand, and very carefully, hissing from the heat of the water, climbed into the tub. She settled into the steamy bath to read the second book about World War II Red Cross nurses that were in the second wave invasion of the beach in Normandy on D-Day, who helped care for the wounded soldiers and saved lives. It was a fascinating account of their missions and collection of their interviews and stories, when the door buzzed. It was well past two in the morning, what was anybody ringing the buzzer for?

“Ah, shit,” she mumbled, putting her book down on the closed toilet lid and grabbing a towel as she stood up.

“ _Hey, Kate, I know you’re awake, the lights are on_ ,” Alexis called through the intercom.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit,” she mumbled again, doing a quick pat-down of her limbs before wrapping herself up in the towel. She dashed over to the intercom and pressed the button. “Hey, I was just in the bathtub, sorry it took me a moment.”

“Can I come up? I brought some comfort food for you.”

Kate sighed. She was being really sweet right now, but she just didn’t need for Alexis to see her when she had just lost someone. “Oh, Alexis, you’re so nice to think of me right now, but it’s not a good idea. I can’t really let you up.”

“ _Oh come on, Kate, I’m standing out here in the middle of the night-_ ”

“I was seriously about to go to bed. I just got out of the bath, and I’m standing here in a towel-”

“ _Oh, nice_!”

Kate was annoyed by that. “Like I said, it’s not a good idea.”

“ _Um…_ ” There was a long silence. “ _I just want to take care of you. Isn’t that what someone you’re dating does?_ ”

She felt a little sick: had things really gotten this miscommunicated between the two of them? “Alexis… we’re not dating. I’m not your girlfriend and I don’t have romantic intentions towards you.”

There was another long pause, she could tell Alexis was probably making an expression of shock, taking this statement in.

“I’m sorry,” Kate added in. “I didn’t mean to lead you on.”

 _“You’re a giant cunt, did anybody ever tell you that?_ ” Alexis snarled back over the intercom. She could hear the hurt and frustration and tears edging her voice.

Kate groaned to herself; this was exactly what she hadn’t meant to do. “Alexis-”

“ _Fuck off_ ,” she responded.

“Alexis, wait! Alexis!” she ran to the elevator and took it down to see if Alexis was still at the front door. She got there just in time to see her redhead in the street light, climbing into the back of a taxi. She didn’t want anybody in her building to see her in a towel, so she went back upstairs, and pulled the bathtub plug before putting on her pajamas. She called Alexis a few times, but it went to voicemail. She was screening her calls, Kate was certain. She sent Alexis several text messages, apologizing for the miscommunication and telling her that she really did care about her, but it was just wrong for her start a romantic relationship with her late fiance’s daughter. Alexis didn’t respond, and Kate felt sick to her stomach, so sick she couldn’t sleep and forgot to eat until she started feeling faint the next morning.

She dressed in her formal police uniform and went to the visitation, but her thoughts were on Alexis the whole time. When she left the visitation, she changed clothes and went to work, trying to call the girl again on the way there, but there was no response.

She felt sick at her desk in her office, angry that she was distracted in the workplace by her private life. They had only really kissed once; the rest was just being affectionate in a friendly way. It wasn’t the first time in her life, but she wished she was a man. Men didn’t touch or behave in an affectionate way with their own sex, so this kind of confusion in male bisexuals probably didn’t happen too often.

Her phone chimed, and Alexis had texted her back.

_I don’t care what you have to say to justify how you acted with me. Did you really think I was so helpless and stupid you had to guide me? If I wanted help, I’d have asked you for it. You think a lot yourself. I don’t care if I never see you again, stop trying to contact me._

She went to text her back that she was trying to teach her to protect her, but decided this was incredibly unprofessional and put her phone away. She’d try to go over to her apartment and apologize in person, since she had royally fucked up over the intercom instead of to Alexis’ face. In the mean time, she had a precinct to run.

After work, she drove over to Castle’s old apartment building. The doorman was on a smoke break luckily, so she went upstairs and knocked on the door, nervous about seeing the inside of his old apartment after all these years.

There were soft footsteps up to the door and the doorknob turned. When it opened, a bedraggled Alexis answered and her puffy, red eyes narrowed. “What are you doing here?” she asked coldly.

“I wanted to apologize,” she said, feeling sick that Alexis looked like she had been crying and drinking herself into a stupor because of the pain Kate caused her.

“It doesn’t make me feel any less rejected,” she whispered.

“Hear me out? Please?”

Alexis shrugged and opened up the door to allow her to enter.

Kate took a step inside the old loft. It seemed emptier, sparser than when Castle had lived here, but what was left was his old things. She gazed around. “I’m so sorry I made you feel like I had intentions towards you,” she said. “I can’t-”

“Yeah, you did a really good job, kissing me and holding me through the night and taking me on dates and-”

“I didn’t do any of that to seduce you.”

“Well, I guess I did get screwed after all. I kept wondering why you didn’t want to have sex with me. That should have been my first clue, but it wasn’t.”

“No matter what happens, no matter what we both do, and where we go, I will have always been your late father’s fiancee,” Kate said mournfully. “And you could have been my stepdaughter.”

“But it never happened,” Alexis pointed out.

She shook her head. “I just wanted to save you the mistakes I made when I first came out, if I couldn’t be with you.”

“What’s so bad about coming out now?”

Kate shook her head with disgust. “A lot.”

“I’m going to pour another drink, talk.”

Alexis went over the bar, which was seriously depleted since she had last been in this apartment.

“Please don’t drink.”

“I don’t know who you think you are-”

“I want you to be sober when I tell you this so you can hear me clearly and get it right.”

Alexis put the decanter of whisky down and screwed the glass top back on, turning around to face her.

“When I finally came to terms with being bisexual, I’d tell guys, whenever I went on dates with men instead of women, on the first date. They’d suddenly treat me as if I were a fetish, try to pressure me into threesomes and all kinds of perverted things, not even bothering to get to know me. I became a sexual object to them, not a person. It wasn’t fun and I didn’t understand what I did wrong, why men were suddenly treating me like this. I just thought I was giving them fair warning when they really didn’t deserve to know my sexual history right off the bat, but I didn’t understand that.”

Alexis just shrugged. “Who says I don’t want to be a sexual object? Maybe I want to have sex without caring.”

“In the long term, it’s damaging.”

“Maybe I can’t see past tomorrow,” Alexis muttered.

Only then did it really strike Kate that Alexis wasn’t mentally well right now. Of course: she showed all the signs; two years of running away from her problems, all the dangerous alcohol abuse, she had indicated that she had a fuckbuddy in every major city in Europe… There was a very real possibility that Alexis was acting out dangerously. Or maybe she was just being argumentative and belligerent to be rebellious. Kate’s heart broke that she was depressed and falling in on herself. Losing a parent was terrifying. And Alexis had really only had one parent, and he was gone. She had to feel like she was struggling against the stream and not able to keep her head above water. If a relationship with Kate made her want to survive, made her look forward to the future right now, it was awfully tempting. And Kate had been trying to avoid her feelings for the girl; to keep Alexis alive, she’d have to give in. It wasn’t a chore or something she didn’t want. She’d drop the boundaries and just love her.

She took a few steps towards the young lady and cupped her face. “I want you to be okay,” Kate whispered. “I want you to look forward to the future and survive. Your father would have wanted that for you.”

Alexis looked into her eyes; hers were bloodshot and hungover, but spoke volumes. She was scared. She was terrified and she needed a rock, obviously. Alexis leaned forward and pressed her lips to Kate’s. Kate kissed her back. 

* * *

 

“I want you all to myself,” Kate said to her in a low, gutteral voice, taking Alexis by the shoulders. “I never liked to share my toys, and I don’t want anybody else to know the way your lips taste.”

Alexis shivered at her words and Kate very slowly unbuttoned the old flannel shirt that she had put on this afternoon when she woke up. She hadn’t put on a bra, either, and her nipples chilled in the air conditioning. A strangled moan came out of Kate’s throat when she got the shirt parted and exposed the younger woman’s breasts; they were better than she had imagined. Kate felt aroused at the sight of them, but it was Alexis who caught her mouth in another scorching kiss. Even if this was Alexis’ first time with a woman, the first knew how to make her hot with only a kiss, as if she needed help with tits like those. Her fingers found purchase on those soft, milk-white mounds, her nipples already teased to hard peaks.

Alexis moaned into her mouth when Kate’s fingers brushed over her nipples.

“Come here,” she whispered, tugging the brunette’s hands, towards the bedroom.

She remembered this moment with Castle; he had picked her up and she wrapped her legs around his middle, kissing him, and he took her back to the bedroom and they explored each other. It wasn’t fair to Alexis, though.

In the bedroom, Alexis shed the flannel top and sat down on the bed. “Are you going to join me?” she asked,

Kate responded by crossing her arms over her stomach to grip the hem of her top, revealing a sexy black lace lined bra. She unhooked it and the band snapped under her arms, and she slowly, seductively slid the straps off, revealing her petite, but round and still-perky breasts. Alexis thought she’d explode at the sight. Kate unhooked the waist of her trousers and let them pool around her feet, stepping out of them. Alexis felt herself practically drooling at the sight of her in the matching black lace and tan thong before she strode over to the bed and climbed on top of her on all fours. Alexis wanted to be trapped in her arms, to feel the breasts that were hanging down on her chest. She gazed up at Kate’s face, eyes hooded at the sight of the redhead. She panicked.

“I don’t know what to do,” Alexis admitted. “I want to make love to you, but-”

“Don’t worry about it, every couple has a first time,” she murmured, entertained by Alexis’ nerves. She lowered her head to kiss her again, and Alexis thought she’d explode from the excitement, her heart ready to burst out of her chest.

Kate kissed along her chin and up to the delicate skin right under her ear. Alexis writhed underneath her, feeling the nerves go into a frenzy at the gentle touch of her lips and tongue while running her hand over her hair to push it out of the way and lowered her body down. Alexis gasped at the feeling of another woman’s body, a really beautiful body, pressed up against hers. Kate lifted her head to check on her. “You’re alright?”

“Yeah,” she breathed.

“Good,” her hands cupped the redhead’s breasts, making her cry out again, and then brushed her thumbs over her hardened nipples.

“Mmm,” Alexis moaned, closing her eyes, head lolling to the side from the pleasure. Kate kissed her way down Alexis’s collarbone and to the tops of her breasts, making another breathy cry come out. Her thumbs pressed down before she trailed kisses down to the darkening centers, taking one into her mouth. Alexis felt her back arch at the touch of her mouth to her nipple. It was different: softer, gentler, Kate’s hair smelled sweeter. She lifted her head and kissed her again, a smirk crossing her lips.

“Did you like that?” she asked.

“Mmm-hmm. Do you want it?” Alexis asked.

“Just copy me, I’ll teach you,” she said, getting up off of her.

Alexis rolled over on top of her and they kissed for a while, and Kate’s hands stroked her bare back. She went a step further and licked the underside of Kate’s earlobe, earning an appreciative sigh. Her hair was getting the way, so she sat up and pulled it back and twisted it into a rope quickly over her shoulder. “Just a second. Okay.” She bent down to take her partner’s perky tits into her hands, cupping them, and took one into her mouth: she had licked and sucked on men’s nipples before, but a woman’s was different, softer, and a bit larger. The fleshy globe lengthened as she pulled back slightly, sucking just enough to pull it by the nipple. The noises coming out of Kate’s mouth indicated she liked it. Alexis repeated with the other nipple. She began to try to press hot, sticky open-mouthed kisses along Kate’s toned abs, down to the front little bow of her thong. She slipped her fingers under the waistband and began to slide it down, revealing a freshly-waxed mons. She panicked slightly.

“Just a second,” Kate said, sitting up, sensing the terror on her face. “Let’s get the rest of our clothes off, okay cupcake?”

She sat up and pushed the thong down her legs, noticing Alexis’ nerves. She remember fondly the first time she went down on a woman, and it had terrified her, but had accepted being eaten out a few times already, she felt she owed it at the time, pressure from her girlfriend. Tonight, she finished unbuttoning Alexis’ jeans and she lifted her hips so she could push them, and the polka-dotted boycut shorts, down. The denim waistband had left red marks along the middle of Alexis’ soft stomach, and she was a little embarrassed by it; she was not toned and strong like Kate.

“It’s alright,” Kate whispered, running her hand along the soft flesh of the red head’s stomach. She tugged the last of the clothing off between them, revealing a V of coarse red curls on Alexis that she couldn’t wait to bury her face into.

“I’m so not prepared for this,” Alexis admitted, pressing a hand over her sex for modesty.

“You’re perfect. Just what I like,” Kate murmured, climbing up her body to kiss her swollen lips. “Alright, just relax when I do this.” She settled her hips between Alexis’ legs, and took her knee to bend up towards her chest. Her long, slender fingers slid into her cleft, making her scream.

“Oh, Kate!” she shrieked as her wet folds were explored. Kate found her entrance, and slippe two of her finger inside the girl, finding her hot and soaking wet. She curved her fingers to find her G-spot, and Alexis felt her muscles tense at the white-hot threads shooting through her body and causing stars in her vision as Kate pumped her fingers. “Kate!” she moaned as her clit was brushed with her thumb, mewling. Kate brushed that wet, swelling clit, speeding up her strokes. The younger woman ground her hips against her hand, and Kate could only imagine scissoring her later. But first, she had things to do.

Alexis thought she had blacked out for a moment, until Kate slid down her torso, putting her bent leg over her shoulder, and then the other, and pressed wet, open-mouthed kisses down her inner thigh, leading up to her entrance.

“Oh, Kate,” she whispered, stroking the crown of her head. Kate went in, exploring the folds of her lips with her tongue, caressing and driving up to the bundle of nerves in her clit. She fluttered her tongue on the engorged cluster, and the orgasm hit Alexis like a tidal wave. Kate tasted the tangy elixir of her younger girlfriend, and listened to the yelps of satisfaction coming out of her mouth.

She lifted her head and watched as Alexis’s stomach rose and fell at a rapid rate, her hands over her face. She considered that it might be too much for Alexis to try to return the favor just yet, so she watched her, feeling proud of herself, running the flat of her hand along her stomach. “How was that?” she asked her.

“I… oh, that was fucking amazing,” she panted, her heart racing so fast, she could hardly hear anything.

“I’m not done with you, yet,” she said, wiping Alexis’ juices off her face with the back of her wrist.

Alexis propped herself up on her elbows to look at her, and a satisfied grin crossed her face. “Kiss me,” she demanded, reaching down to cup her face. Kate let her cup her chin, and they kissed, her tongue slipping past Alexis’ lips. Alexis tasted herself on Kate’s lips, salty and a little bitter, but wonderful. She felt Kate’s hand suddenly grip her knee again and pull it up to her chest.

“I told you I wasn’t done with you, yet,” Kate said grinning, slipping one leg over Alexis’ hip. Their wet pussies were pressed together and Alexis gasped at the contact. Slowly, Kate began to undulate her torso so that she was rubbing her pussy to create friction between the two of them. She moved so beautiful and gracefully, it was obvious she was an expert and had done this multiple times before. Alexis felt like a clumsy chud for a moment, but the excitement coursed through her veins, building and building, making her moan and mewl louder and louder as Kate increased the speed of her movements. Kate thought it was beautiful, watching her tits bounce and jiggle with every thrust.

“Cum with me,” Kate demanded.

“Yes!” Alexis moaned. “Yes!”

“Now!”

“Yes, please!”

A long, slow orgasm came out of each one of them, Alexis playing with her nipples to try to extend it.

Kate’s long, low moan escalated into a series of yelps. She watched as Alexis’ back arched off the mattress, pinching and rolling her nipples, eyes squeezed shut with her head to the side as she cried out, muscles locking. Kate felt her own body clench, and she came.

“Oh… oooh,” Alexis sighed. There was no doubt she was bisexual, now. She had enjoyed that so much, but she still didn’t want to tell the world that’s how she liked to fuck: scissoring another woman. It was better than anything she had imagined with her vibrator. “Oh, Kate…” Their legs were tangled and they were all sweaty and mussed up, and the smell of sex permeated the air. Alexis’ whole body was blushing and tingling. “That was amazing.”

She disentangled their legs and laid down beside her, taking her into her arms to kiss her gently, the hurried tension of love-making over, her own body tingling like an electric current had gone through it. “You were amazing.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Alexis scoffed, gazing into her dark eyes. “You were, though. I’ve never seen anybody move like that except in porn.”

They laughed. “I’ve had a little practice.”

“Teach me?”

She kissed her nose, cupping and stroking her asscheeks. “Of course, cupcake. Of course.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed my first published Castle lemon and first-ever femme slash! I hope you keep reading, and thank you to all the people who left me kudos! You're the best!


	5. Boundaries and Lessons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and Alexis bond after making love for the first time: Kate continues to show Alexis what a relationship with a woman really means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, I'm just being a perv with two of the characters.

So much had changed in the last fifteen minutes. Alexis was still shaking a bit, trembling from the release she had just enjoyed at Kate’s hands… and mouth… and her pussy. She had worried Kate would think she was some kind of inexperienced kid, but all she felt was like was as if she was glowing. She felt nothing but acceptance and patience from her new partner. If only losing her virginity had been this painless, the feeling that she was glowing, holding Kate in her arms.

Kate held her and they talked, and kissed and touched. It felt like their own little bubble. “You want to spend the night?” Alexis finally asked her.

She opened her mouth, as if to protest, but then smiled. “Yeah, I might as well,” she said, sitting up to kiss her. She hopped out of bed, and Alexis had to admire her butt as she disappeared into the bathroom. She turned on the TV and pulled up _2 Broke Girls_ on the DVR and got under the covers before she heard the toilet flush. Kate came out a minute later and scooped up Alexis’ flannel shirt that she had shed when she walked in the door to the bedroom, slipping it on. Her figure was still illuminated by the bathroom light, and Alexis truly thought she was beautiful.

Kate sat down beside her in the bed, the flannel shirt didn’t cover her breasts very well, not that Alexis minded. “You know what?” she asked. “I’ve loved this show since it came on the air.”

“Me too! I know people like Caroline, just haven’t lost their money.”

“I know plenty of people like Max,” Kate agreed. “And Earl.”

Kate’s long, graceful legs were crossed at the ankle while they watched the show and Alexis admired them. She wanted to kiss her way up the firm and silky-smooth calves and thighs, instead, she just rested her hand on her thigh while they watched TV and would brush that part of Kate’s body with the backs of her fingertips, but lost her nerve. Kate slipped her hands under the sheets and stroked Alexis’ breasts. “Why are you hiding under the covers?”

Alexis smiled shyly. “I’m doing it because I can,” she giggled.

“Why? I love your body.” She kissed along her cheek until she got to her lips and brushed the sheets off her breasts.

“I wish I had yours.”

“I feel like I’m too thin, if you don’t smack me first for saying that. I eat like a pig and still can’t gain weight, I’m so active. You look like a woman should,” Kate said, palming her breast while they kissed.

“I love your body so much I paint it,” Alexis admitted.

“You do?”

“Yeah. Do you want to see?”

“Sure. It’s in Dad’s old study.”

Alexis got out of the bed, and scanned the room for something to wear. But Kate grabbed her hand and tip-toe-ing across the room. She felt terrified, but a little bit elated at Kate viewing her body. Alexis flipped on the lights to reveal that she had push her father’s old writing desk to the side and an easel with a painting of pink sunrise was unfinished by the window. Fully aware of her nudity and that Kate was looking at her, she crossed the room to get the painting she had made off the picture of Kate from when she was younger. She had to bend over to sort through the stack of canvases that had dried, and hoped her cellulite wasn’t showing. Finding it, she held it up over her torso to show her. “I saw this picture of you on the wall in your apartment. I loved it, so I took a picture of it and I painted it.”

Kate’s jaw dropped. “Lex, it’s beautiful! That’s me?”

“Yeah. I was pretty sure it was you, so I took my chances. How’d you end up naked in pictures?”

“I used to pose nude for a photographer in college, and he loved photographing my butt,” she laughed. “I think this was after I gained the freshman fifteen. I actually had an ass then.”

“Your ass is beautiful.”

“So is yours.” Kate stepped forward and brushed Alexis’ cheek with her hand. “You’re a talented artist, Lex. I love it.”

Alexis glowed from the compliment, and kissed her palm. “I’m glad you like it.”

“I hope you never quit painting,” Kate said. “Ever.”

* * *

Kate left Alexis’s apartment early in the morning, but left a note that she’d call her when she had a moment today. She hated leaving her little strawberry cupcake in the bed, sleeping, but after she showed her the paintings she had done, they had a few shots of whiskey, which put her to sleep. She took the subway to her apartment and then showered and dressed for the funeral.

At the wake, she saw Esposito. He gave her a hug. “It’s good to see you, Beckett.”

“Thanks, it’s good to see you, too.”

“Ryan and Jenny are here.”

“Oh, they are? I didn’t see them.”

“Yeah, they sneaked in at the last minute,” he said. “Come on.”

They went over to the table where her friends from the 12th were waiting. Both Ryan and Jenny gave her big hugs. “I’m so sorry,” Jenny admitted. “It’s terrible to lose one of your precinct’s family.”

Kate nodded. “I didn’t have a lot of warning. He died just like Castle did.”

“Oh, honey,” Laney said, squeezing her wrist. “Sit down!”

“I’m fine,” Kate assured them. “I’ve been through enough therapy to deal with losing Castle. No flashbacks, no nothing. Just a lot of grief. He was a good cop and a good man, O’Rourke.”

Jenny’s phone rang. “Oh, just a second!” she answered the phone; it was her baby-sitter just calling to ask if Sarah Grace could have another cookie before bed. Kate took that time to check her own phone, like Ryan and Esposito did. Two texts from Alexis.

_I had a really good time last night. You are so beautiful._

_Do you want me to come over tonight?_

Kate smiled to herself: it was the honeymoon phase of any relationship, wanting to do it all the time. Alexis did have a lot to learn, but Kate could be patient. At least she was open and willing to experiment. She sent a response to her.

_I’m catching up with the old gang. We’re probably going to go out, but I’ll text you when I head home, if you’re still up for it._

“What’s that smile?” Laney asked. “You’re glowing. You’re seeing somebody new. Who is it?”

“Just… somebody,” Kate admitted. She was kind of nervous about telling her old friends that she was seeing Castle’s daughter. She wasn’t ready for the judgment, yet. She also wanted to see if this thing with Alexis would pan out. “It’s new, so…”

“Is he exciting?” Jenny asked. They all knew she was bi, but still, their group was heteronormative and assumed she was seeing a man. She had to tread carefully.

“They’re somebody special.”

“Oh wait a second, she’s playing the pronoun game!” Jenny cried.

“So you’re seeing a woman?” Esposito asked, grinning.

“It’s new, like I said. And she’s not quite out of the closet, yet, so… give me a break here, okay?” Kate said, blushing. “It’s my private, personal life.”

“Fine, fine,” Laney said. “You know I will find out sooner or later, girl.”

“I know,” Kate said. “But it’s not me, she’s just really shy right now. And not ready for the world to know she’s trying out women.”

“Do any of us know her?” Jenny asked.

Kate’s breath hitched in her chest. She didn’t want to lie to her friends. “Um… I think so. Let’s just leave it at that.”

They got into a conversation about another subject, and then went out to the Old Haunt to have a few drinks. As Kate left for home, she sent Alexis a text message that she was heading home.

Alexis met her at her apartment door, looking a little nervous. There were dark smudges of leftover mascara smeared under her eyes, but her face broke into a relieved smile. Kate was certain she had been day-drinking again.

“Hi,” Kate said, reaching for her to kiss her, but she shrank back.

“No PDA in public, okay?” Alexis asked.

“Nobody cares out here on the street!”

“I know, but…”

“Okay, okay... Have you had dinner, yet?”

“No, I’m not really hungry, but… I brought something.” She pulled a 50mL bottle of Grey Goose out of her purse and a flash of danger glinted in her eyes.

Kate laughed as she unlocked the door to her building. “Come on, cupcake. You’re also my vodka cupcake?”

“Yeah,” Alexis sighed, as they entered the elevator. She slipped her arms around Kate’s middle and pressed her face into her neck. Kate didn’t want to tell her that the elevator to her apartment was video-monitored. She finally allowed Kate to kiss her hello.

In her apartment, she quickly changed out of her formal police uniform and into some pajama pants and a tank top. She grabbed a make-up remover towelette from her skin care drawer before going into her living room, Alexis was sitting on the couch, pouring shots.

“Come on,” she said, indicating the shots.

“I’ve already had enough to drink tonight,” Kate said, waving it off, sitting down and using the make-up towelette to wipe under the girl’s eyes. She cooperated aimlessly. “You’ve got mascara under your eyes.”

“Sorry, I just slept really hard today after I painted for a few hours. Can I have a shot?”

“Sure.”

Alexis took both shots one-and-a-time, like a pro.

“Do you want to just watch TV and cuddle for a while?” Kate asked suggestively, stroking Alexi’s arm.

“That sounds good right now,” Alexis admitted. She curled into Kate’s arms and Kate turned on the TV. There was the latest episode of _Priscilla_ on her DVR and they watched it, laughing at how funny Martha could be, playing a sexually active senior who was also a funny drunk mother, always coming back with the best one-liners and badly parenting her son’s children. Kate watched with Alexis’s head resting on her breast, stroking her back lightly with her fingernails. When the show was over, Kate turned off the television.

“How was the funeral?” Alexis asked, resting her chin between Kate’s breasts to look at her.

“It was… cathartic. It was nice to speak as the Captain in his memory. I saw the old gang from the Twelfth, too.”

“Do you miss them a lot?”

“Yeah, I do,” Kate sighed, stroking the fiery red locks of hair on her head. She grazed her fingernails across the younger woman’s scalp. “But change is inevitable. Javi and Ryan are both lieutenants, now. I’m expected Jenny to pop any day now, she’s so pregnant, and Lanie…”

“How is Lanie? I need to call her.”

“Laney is fabulous as always. They found out I’m seeing a woman.”

“What?” Alexis’ head shot up.

“Relax, I didn’t tell them it was you, we haven’t talked about that, yet.”

Alexis seemed a bit worried.

“Do you want to just keep this between us for now?” Kate asked her, stroking her cheek.

“Mmm-hmm. I’m just getting comfortable with this,” she admitted. “You know you’re my first.”

“First girlfriend?”

“Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Do you really want a relationship?”

“I do. I want to figure it all out.”

“Okay,” Kate said. Alexis kissed her thumb. “We need to discuss rules, though.”

“Do we have to?” Alexis sighed.

“We do. Like I said last night, I prefer monogamy. That means no friends with benefits and no one on the side, no kissing other people, men or women. Men count just as much as women. If you really need some dick, ask me first. I’ll probably be okay with it.”

“Okay, I’ll lay one out, too: no public displays of affection, like kissing or groping in public. For now.”

“Groping in public? What do you think I am?” Kate snorted. “I’m a professional. I can’t be seen doing something risque like dancing on a stripper pole… in public.”

“Do you know how to ride a pole?” she asked hopefully.

“Actually…”

Alexis’ jaw dropped.

“No, not really,” she said, a grin creeping across her pretty face. “I just wanted to see if I could surprise you. I goofed around on a stripper pole in a nightclub in college, but those girls who actually work in the clubs… damn, that’s a legit exercise form if I ever saw it. That’s some hard work.”

“They offered a pole-dancing class at the rec center at Columbia when I was there,” Alexis admitted. “I never took it.”

“Alright, one more rule: we don’t have to have sex every night we’re together.”

“Why not?” she asked, looking confused.

“I know it doesn’t hurt as much as sex with men when you get sore, but some nights, I’m exhausted and I just want to go to bed. But I will always find you exciting, cupcake. Don’t worry about that.” She ran her finger over Alexis’ lips and tapped her gently on the nose. Alexis smiled, her eyes focusing on Kate’s fingertip. “As for tonight, school’s in session.”

Alexis lifted her body, getting up on all fours, and kissed her soft lips.

“You know how to give some scorching hot kisses, Lexi,” Kate purred.

“Well, it’s easy when you like the lesson,” she replied, kissing her again and pulled back.

“I’d like teaching a lot more if you’d take off all your clothes,” Kate whispered between kisses.

“Good,” Alexis said, sitting up, straddling her. She unbuttoned her top and shed it to the floor, revealing a white lace bra. “I love you naked.”

“I love you naked more,” Kate murmured, reaching up to brush one of the bra cups gently and Alexis undid the back hooks and slid the straps down, revealing her milky-white breasts and her blush pink nipples. Kate sighed at the sight. “So beautiful…” She reached up to cup them, but her words seemed to encourage Alexis to get up to shed her jeans and panties, revealing her adorable little ass. Kate had thought she had the cutest ass for spooning, but she laid down on top of her. Kate shivered from her body being on top of her.

“How’s that?”

“Good. Great,” Kate muttered. She moaned slightly. She wasn’t wear a bra under the lace chemise she had put on over yoga pants, and she could feel the curves of Alexis’ body against her own. The fabric she was wearing wasn’t that thick. She stroked the red locks of her silky hair and all kinds of dirty thoughts roamed through her mind to try to ‘teach’ Alexis, but she needed to start slow, work her way up. “I’d like a back rub.”

“While I’m naked?”

“Sure, let me up.”

Alexis got up so Kate could sit up, and she took off her chemise and rolled over onto her stomach. Alexis’ freezing cold hands rubbed up and down her back, kneading and smoothing out her sore muscles from the day. Once she had rubbed the knots out of her back, Kate got up, and rolled back over. “Can you take the rest of my clothes off?” she asked. Alexis eagerly slipped her fingers under the waistband of her yoga pants and thong, and Kate lifted her hips. Alexis pulled her bottoms off one leg at a time. Kate flipped her foot up at Alexis, who took it into her hands and began rubbing it. “You’re a quick learner.”

“I try,” Alexis said, rubbing up her calves, kissing her knee. The younger woman climbed up her torso and kissed her lips, pressing her bare body against Kate’s, each of them writhing a bit, Alexis’ hands stroking through Kate’s hair, her hands stroking Alexis’ butt. They kissed for a while and Alexis’ thigh pressed between hers, pressing into her hot sex. Alexis bent her head down and took one of Kate’s nipples into her mouth, and laved it, running her tongue around the areola, teasing the nipple. Kate enjoyed it.

“How do you masturbate?” Kate asked her after a particularly long kiss.

“What?” she cried, back shooting up straight.

“Whatever you do to yourself, do to me,” Kate offered. “I’ll tell you if I don’t like it. It’s alright, everybody does it.”

Alexis tentatively reached up her thigh to massage it, and up to her bare sex, her thumb brushing right over above her cleft. Kate closed her eyes and sighed. “I like it,” Alexis admitted. “It feels so nice and smooth.” She paused, and Kate felt Alexis’ fingers slipped into her folds. Kate bit her lip to keep from moaning and opened her legs up a little wider. She heard Alexis take in a sharp breath. “Oooh,” she whispered. “You’re so wet!”

“Yeah, I am,” Kate agreed as her fingers slid down her inner lips towards her entrance. Alexis kissed her shoulder. “I think about your cute little cupcake ass and I get all turned on.”

Alexis slipped a finger inside her, and her back arched off the couch, and Alexis brushed her thumb over her clit, then another finger slipped inside. “I felt so bad last night when you were pleasuring me,” Alexis said. “And I didn’t know how to do it back.”

“Oh, baby,” Kate sighed, just enjoying the touch of her thumb against her clit. “You know. Just curve your fingers upwards, okay?” Alexis did as she told her. “Feel that? That’s my g-spot.”

“Oh!” Alexis cried, surprised.

Kate felt couldn’t deny it any longer: Alexis began fluttering her fingertips inside her on her g-spot. Kate hoped she was able to identify the g-spot by feel only, but she was getting so turned on, she couldn’t stop herself from the orgasm rushing over her. “Oh! Yes, oh Alexis!” she felt her muscles clench, and she came. “You did so well,” she muttered, touching Alexis’ hand. “Do you want your reward?”

“Now?”

“Just a second,” she whispered, and took her fingers out of Kate and very carefully brought them to her lips. Her eyes closed. “Hmmm… not bad.” Her eyes opened again. “Do you want me to try eating you out?”

“If you want.”

“Um…” She lowered her head and hesitated.

“Do you want to just look, first?”

“Okay,” Alexis said. Kate opened her legs up and Alexis gazed down at her. She examined her, nervously. Kate wondered if she was ready, but it erotic at the same time.

“Alright,” Kate said, closing her legs and sitting up. “That’s enough. Lay down.”

“Why?”

Kate was surprised, what did she think she was going to do? She smirked. “Don’t talk back to me! I was about to give you something you like!”

“How do you know what I like?” she teased, glancing over her shoulder, moving the throw pillow to the other end of the couch.

“I know you like being scissored and you liked being eaten out…” Kate said as she gripped Alexis’ adorable ass. “Mmm. My little cupcake, you’re so cute. You want a spanking?”

Alexis giggled and wriggled her butt. “Maybe.” She turned around and sat down on the couch. “How were you going to reward me, Kate?”

Kate felt a wicked grin cross her face and she slipped her hands between Alexis knees. “Always difficult,” she whispered, kissing each knee, parting her legs and running her fingers down the sensitive insides of her thighs, lowering her head while keeping her dark eyes locked with Alexis’. Her legs opened like a flower’s petals to the sun, and Kate looked down at the glistening wet, blush-pink lips, and couldn’t help herself. Her flattened her tongue and ran it from Alexis’ entrance to her clit, tasting the salty liquid. She heard a grunt out of Alexis, and looked up to see her eyes squeezed shut. She bent her head back down and flicked her clit with her tongue, stopping to trace her wet inner lips, listening for Alexis to cry out. When she did, she lifted her sholulders, wishing she could sixty-nine the girl, but it wasn’t a great idea, just yet. _Goals,_ she told herself.

“Are you stopping?” Alexis asked, surprised.

“Not quite,” Kate said. She slipped a thigh over one of Alexis’ and lowered her hips so that they were rubbing against each other. Alexis closed her eyes, sighing with a grin, and played with her nipples slightly. Kate nudged her own pussy against Alexis, and then bent down to take one of her nipples into her mouth. She felt herself getting hot and wet all over again, and began to rock her hips against Alexis, building up the friction.

“Yes! Oh yes!” Alexis cried.

“I know,” Kate whispered, feeling her muscles tense. “I know!” She sped up her strokes and Alexis began to match her. “Good! Good girl, keeping doing just that! Yes!”

They writhes cried out on the couch together, damp pussies brushing each other’s, riding out. Alexis came first, fingers scratching against the couch fabric, shouting her name, which spurned Kate to go over the edge, too, grasping at the younger girl’s breasts.

“I think I blacked out there,” Alexis panted as Kate climbed off of her. “You do that to me.”

She sat up and kissed Kate directly on the lips. Kate kissed her back, and slipped her arms around the redhead.

* * *

They kissed on the couch for a long time, Kate combed her fingers through Alexis’ hair. Once the A/C chilled them, Kate tugged her younger girlfriend up. “Come on, let’s take a shower.”

“You wanna… shower with me?” Alexis asked, alarmed. She hadn’t showered with women since prep school, not even in the youth hostels she stayed in in Europe, and it was always non-sexual.

“Yeah, sure, we both need it after sex. I’ll rub your back for you, see if I can relax you,” Kate offered. She lead Alexis into her bathroom, which contained a huge claw-foot tub with Victorian steel faucets and handles. She tugged the curtain back some more and turned on the hot water and then got the showerhead going. “Come on,” Kate said, patting her butt, pushing her towards the tub. Alexis climbed over the edge and met the hot water spray. She stood underneath it, enjoying the heat and Kate stepped in behind her, pulling the curtain.

“Oh, this feels nice,” Alexis admitted, turning around to get her hair wet under the spray.

“It’s not as nice as the one at your place,” Kate admitted, stepping forward to get under the spray, too. Alexis traded places with her. She wet her hair down and mascara began running down her face. Alexis handed her the face wash and she began scrubbing off her face, facing the shower spray. She couldn’t help but admit Kate’s perfect ass with the water droplets falling down her smooth skin from the small of her back. She understood that college photographer’s obsession with her ass, now. She reached down and stroked her hips that were slippery with water. “Hey, wait a second, Alexis. I’m supposed to be the one massaging you in the shower,” Kate said, grinning, turning around to look at her.

“I just recognize the beauty of your ass with that college photographer,” Alexis admitted. “No wonder he loved photographing it.”

“That photographer was actually a she. One of my first girlfriends. Ever.” Kate leaned in to press a kiss to Alexis’ lips. “Come on, I want to rub you down.” She guided Alexis under the shower spray and picked up the body wash. “Here,” she squirted out a dollop of wash and began to rub it in with her hands on Alexis’ shoulders, down her arms, and down her back. Alexis relaxed under Kate’s touch, and let her rub the body wash into her supple pale skin.

“Oh, that feels so nice,” Alexis admitted.

“I’m not trying to turn you on,” Kate admitted.

“No, it’s just nice to be touched, even if it’s not sexual.”

Kate rubbed in the body wash with her hands and then turned to get the bottle back, but Alexis stopped her. “My turn,” she said softly, getting the bottle. She washed Kate’s body with care and a growing familiarity. It was intimate without being sexual, a rare thing. Afterwards, they washed each other’s hair and got out of the shower after rinsing off. Kate wrapped up her new girlfriend in her warm bathrobe and got towel for herself. Alexis seemed more relaxed than ever as Kate dried her hair. They just seemed like close friends, now, talking.

They went to bed shortly after, and Alexis shed her bathrobe, as did Kate with her towel, and they climbed into bed naked to just talk and relax.

Alexis curled into her arms and rested her chin on Kate’s breast.

“I like this,” Kate admitted. “Can I get a goodnight kiss from my girlfriend?”

“Of course,” Alexis said, lifting her body and pressing her lips to Kate’s in the darkness. Kate reached up to the back of her neck and slid her fingers up her neck, into her hair as Alexis parted her lips with her tongue. Kate moaned in the back of her throat and slid her tongue over Alexis’ warm one.

“That was nice,” Kate admitted softly.

“I can do better.”

“Show me.”

Alexis settled on top of her, kissing her again, but this time a little deeper. Kate slid her thigh between Alexis’ legs, feeling the heat of her between her legs. Alexis pulled back, sighing uncomfortably.

“Do you think I should wax my bush off?” Alexis asked.

“I will like whatever you do with it. I’m the only person who’s going to see it.”

“I like yours,” she murmured, sliding her hand down Kate’s hip.

Kate moaned slightly at the younger woman’s touch as she slipped her fingers into Kate’s cleft.

“I want you all the time,” Alexis admitted, kissing her shoulder gently. “I want to be a good lover for you. Can I try?”

“Yes, cupcake, you can.”

Alexis trailed open-mouthed kisses down Kate’s belly, making her wet, while her fingers explored between her legs. Kate hoped she was ready for this and didn’t feel pressured as Alexis settled between her legs, slowly sliding her way down. Kate stroked her hair gently to be encouraging, feeling her hot breath on her cleft.

“You don’t have to,” Kate reminded her. “If you want to stop.”

“No,” Alexis said, slipping a finger from her left hand in between Kate’s lips. “I’m going to do this.”

Kate shivered at the touch and closed her eyes. She felt Alexis’ tongue, hot and wet, press into her lips, parting them, delving her tongue into her entrance. She gasped, grasping the fitted sheets, pulling them off the mattress. “Ahh!” Kate moaned, allowing herself to vocalize the wonder of the feeling Alexis eat her out. She groped for Alexis’ hair again, knotting her fingers in the girl’s crown. “Oh, Lex, yes!” She screamed so loud that she was certain that the neighbors could hear her, but that wasn’t important right now. Alexis’ hot mouth was kissing her lips, and her tongue doing dangerous things. Maybe it was how much she cared for Alexis that overlooked her inexperience, knowing the newness for her, but she did do a wonderful job with her clit as the orgasm overcame her. “Ah, shit, Lex! Oh!”

“Did you like that?” Alexis asked, lifting her head from her pussy. “How did I do for my first time to eat you out?”

Kate reached down to stroke her hair, and then her wet cheek. “You did better than I thought, cupcake. Maybe it because I care so much about you that it made it better.”

In the darkness, Kate could see the glow of excitement and pride on the young woman’s face. “I guess that’s a good start for pussy-eating.”

“Yeah, I’d say so. Do you want me to return the sentiment?”

“Please. Let me learn from you, Kate.”

 


	6. Sub Rosa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and Alexis develop their relationship with their first official date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I do not own Castle, Andrew Marlowe does.
> 
> No, I did not forget about this fic. I do have it mapped out, but I've got another original project I'm working on, this fic, another one, and my family. The holidays are finally over. YAY!
> 
> Beta? What beta! P'shaw! I don't have one, so I do my best to proofread on my own.

Alexis’ day always got better when Kate sent her that text message that she was off from work. The close second was waking herself up early to work on her paintings in the early morning light and take a nap in the afternoon to ease her hangover. It was usually Kate’s texts that woke her up and that’s when she’d take a shower, stop by the liquor store for something, and then met up with Kate for dinner. She liked that Kate would offer to pay for dinner about fifty per cent of the time. They’d go home and fool around for the rest of the night. Unless work called her in. Of course, like Kate said, she needed a break once-in-a-while, and sometimes, Alexis just wasn’t up to eating pussy, especially if she hadn’t been able to sleep and had been entertaining herself with shots in the afternoon and daytime television.

Kate had been called in last night, so things had been cut short, and Alexis ended up taking a cold shower before getting drunk on vodka. Today, Alexis had gotten the bright idea to send Kate a designer cupcake with pink icing and sugar lace at work.

_That was a dirty, naughty surprise today at work, cupcake. Getting worked up, hot and bothered, in front of all my uniforms at work was not fun. You better not be wearing panties on my couch when I get home._

The text came in, and she was quite proud of herself: the cupcake had the effect she anticipated. She let herself into Kate’s apartment, and did as asked: she slipped her panties off and left them on the bed, sitting down to have a shot before Kate walked in. She liked being a little drunk, it made her hornier.

She heard Kate’s key in the door.

“Hey,” Alexis said, smirking.

Kate’s face broke into a smile. “You little slut!” she cried, tossing down her purse. She dove for Alexis, and caught her in her arms, laughing. “Oh, that was mean!” She caught Alexis’ lips in a kiss. Alexis giggled into it. She pulled back from Alexis, hand sliding up her skirt. “I could just scissor you right now,” she growled. Her fingers found the wetness between the redhead’s thighs: Alexis had to bite her own lip. “Do you like that?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Alexis giggled, turning pink from arousal. “Did you end up fingering the frosting the same way?”

Kate stuck her dampened fingers in the saucy girl’s mouth. Alexis giggled and sucked on them, giggles turning to moans. “Go to the bedroom and take your clothes off. Just lay down on the bed, I’ll be in there in a moment.” She slowly, achingly, pulled her fingers out of Alexis’ mouth and got up off the couch to go to the bathroom.

Alexis got up off the couch and went to the bedroom. Her panties were missing from the bed: she anticipated that Kate had them. She shimmied out of her skirt and took off the light blue sweater top and bra, and laid down on the bed.

Kate emerged from the bathroom wearing nothing but a pair of lacy off-white thong panties and holding two of her toys. Alexis loved getting pleasured with a vibrator by Kate, and liked returning the favor, too. To her excitement, Kate had brought her double-ended vibrator. She tossed both toys onto the bed beside Alexis’ head and laid down to kiss her, although Alexis was already breathless with excitement. “Did you have a good day at work?” Alexis asked.

“Asides from your little delivery, it wasn’t so bad,” Kate admitted. “Not that many violent crimes other than a mugging today, which is plus, especially in the Meatpacking District.” Kate stroked Alexis’ hair. She kissed her again.

“You know you’re the best part of my day,” Alexis told her, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I wish you didn’t work at all. And would spend all day with me.”

“Then what would I do with my day?”

“Play with me?” Alexis asked.

“Sure,” Kate laughed. “Alexis, I get so much satisfaction of my work. It’s something I do that I love. It feels so satisfying to bring justice to people who’ve been wronged. But it’s nice to come home to you.” She leaned in and they kissed for a long time, tongues sliding over each other’s, touching each other’s breasts and holding the other tightly. “Cupcake.” Kate uttered quietly.

Alexis loved it when she called her that. “I like that I am,” she admitted, cupping Kate’s breast.

“What am I?”

“I already told you,” she said, sitting up just enough to readjust herself. “The best part of my day.” She kissed down Kate’s stomach and down to her nipple, taking it into her mouth and swirling her tongue around it. Kate moaned softly, and Alexis worked her way down to her navel, and then slipped her fingers under the waistband of her panties. Kate lifted her hips and let Alexis take her thong off, sliding it down her legs. “Which one of your toys are we going to play with tonight?” Alexis asking innocently as she slid her fingertips down the inside of Kate’s sensitive thighs. She gasped: Alexis knew Kate’s sensitive spots by now. It was here, the back of her knees, her instep, the insides of her thighs, her back, and her neck. Alexis slipped her fingers into Kate’s wetness.

“Which one?” Kate repeated, biting her lower lip. “Mmm… I’d like to try getting your clit warmed up first with the pocket rocket.”

Alexis stroked a little more and slipped the tips of her fingers into Kate’s entrance, then slipped them completely inside Kate. Kate let out a breathy sigh. “What about the double-ended one? How are we going to use that one?”

“I’m going to use it on you last,” Kate said, stroking Alexis’ shoulders as she stroked Kate’s G-spot, her back arching. “We’ll use it to cum together.”

“Mmm,” Alexis moaned softly at the thought. “Promise?”

“Of course I do. Big finish.” She cupped Alexis’ cheek and guided her head back up to her own to kiss her.

“Then, let’s get started,” Alexis whispered. She began pumping her fingers in and out of Kate, and watched as her older girlfriend gasped and writhed on the bed.

“Mmm, Lex! That feels so good! Don’t stop!” Kate panted. Right as Alexis was certain Kate was cumming, she lowered her head down to run her tongue over Kate’s swollen, needy clt, and spread the moisture from inside her up to swirl it around the little nub. She lapped up her juices greedily as Kate rode out the orgasm. Kate’s hand was on her heart as Alexis looked up. “Oh, cupcake. You’re so good to me.”

“I was taught by the best,” Alexis murmured, kissing her above the cleft, up her toned abdomen.

“My turn,” Kate said, sitting up, picking up the vibrator that looked like a three-inch stick the size of a cigarillo. The batteries must have been fresh, she twisted the base and it buzzed to life. “There. Now lay down and open your legs for me.”

Alexis readily complied, putting her feet flat on the mattress and her legs parted. “I’m ready.”

“Good.”

The vibrator slipped into Alexis’ folds, and she gasped at the fluttering contact. The batteries were definitely fresh: she had a bad habit of running out with her own vibrator. It buzzed her clitoris, and she felt her muscles tensing as her mouth opened. “Oh! Oh, Kate! Yes!”

Kate ran the vibrator up and down her lips and into her entrance. The tiny vibrator buzzed, disappearing inside her, creating delicious feeling of being turned on. “You like it?” Kate purred.

“I love it, but Kate?”

“Yes, cupcake?”

“I want some more.”

Kate slipped the tiny vibrator out of Alexis’ snatch and tossed it aside, kissing her. They kissed for a while, Kate’s finger’s finding their way into her cleft through her hair, down to her entrance, and her thumb brushed her wet clit.

“You’re so lovely,” Alexis moaned. “Please…”

Alexis started to run over, but Kate withdrew her fingers. “Are you ready for the big finale?” Kate asked, reaching for the double-ended vibrator, getting up on her knees.

“Ready, baby,” Alexis replied as Kate turned it on, slipping it inside herself, her eyes rolled up in her head. Alexis parted her legs in anticipation, and Kate guided the other end into Alexis.

Alexis was shocked at the feeling of the tip, and then Kate slid down, pushing the vibrator down into Alexis. “Oh, Kate! Yes, Kate!” Alexis moaned, giving over to the sensation. She loved this too much, but it wasn’t enough as Kate scissored into Alexis. Their clits still brushed, and Alexis was certain this was the best sex toy ever invented. Alexis propped herself up on her elbows and looked up hungrily into Kate’s eyes, before pushing herself up. Kate, surprised, let Alexis push her down onto her back, their pussies not parting, and Alexis ground her hips into Kate’s, driving them both over the edge with the stimulation of the vibrator. Alexis thrust into her, cupping her own breasts, and they went over the edge, Kate grasping at the covers of her bed, squeezing and pulling, crying out Alexis’ name.

“Oh, honey!” Kate sighed, as Alexis pulled her hips back, the needy arousal soaking both of them between their legs.

They laid there in each other’s arms for a while, gently touching each other, kissing, and uttering soft nothings from their mouths to each other. Alexis pulled the vibrator out of Kate, and set it aside to be washed off and cleaned later. This was what Kate said she liked the most about women: the interaction after sex. Men usually rolled over and went to sleep post-orgasm. Women liked to hold each other and cuddle and talk, sometimes. Alexis enjoyed it for a change, too, but insecurities still plagued her.

“Am I enough?” Alexis asked quietly, looking up at Kate. “You don’t miss men while you’re with me?”

“Of course not,” Kate said softly. “Especially not since you let me use the double-ended vibrator on you. Why? Do you miss men?”

Alexis did miss the way men felt, their cocks, a vibrator didn’t quite do the same thing to her.

“It’s okay if you do. A vibrator, no matter how realistic, is not the same as cock,” Kate said soothingly. “Is there a guy you wanna fuck?”

Alexis shook her head. “I wish. Like I said, you’re the best part of my day. I don’t really interact with people until I come out to see you.”

Kate kissed her. “Sweetheart, do you want something more than just come over to my house and have sex?”

“No. Do you want to come over to my place instead?”

They sometimes had dinner at her loft and then they’d watch a movie before retiring to the bedroom. “We were just there last night,” Kate said, nuzzling her chin with her nose before kissing it. “I think you need to get out more, honey.”

“Maybe,” she said, sighing.

“I’ll take you out to dinner. Some place really nice. What do you like?”

“Um…” Alexis mostly ate take-out before Kate. She wasn’t familiar with the Manhattan restaurant scene anymore. “I don’t know. A nice place where we can maybe have Italian? With some nice red wine? Or maybe Mexican with some margaritas?”

“If my cupcake wants Mexican and margaritas, that’s what she’ll get,” Kate said, kissing her quickly.

Alexis didn’t know how to broach this next topic, but she wanted more than anything to have Kate support in it. “I saw that one of the art galleries in Tribeca was sponsoring a workshop night a few weeks.”

“That sounds interesting. Would you paint something in the gallery?”

“No, I’d bring some of my pieces over and they’d hang them up, and then some art critics would come through and critique it. Maybe I could sell a painting, meet some other artists?” Alexis asked. “I’d get to be there, but they wouldn’t know which ones were mine.”

“That sounds perfect for you,” Kate said, excited. “You know I’d be there.”

“You would?” Alexis asked, relieved. “So you’d be my cheering section?”

“Of course!” Kate cried, slipping her arms around her girlfriend. “If you did that, I’d be so proud of you!”

Alexis grinned. She felt like she used to: useful and important again. They kissed for a while, enjoying each other’s soft lips and bodies pressed against each others and the deep connection they seemed to be building together. “What do you want to do tomorrow night?” Alexis asked her gazing up into her girlfriend’s dark eyes dreamily.

“Tomorrow night, I want you to come over in nothing but a corset, thigh-highs, and a pair of high heels. No panties, no bra.”

“Hmm, sounds fun.”

“Good. Right now, I just want to take a bath. It was a long day at work.”

“I’m actually really hungry right now,” Alexis admitted, sitting up in bed. “I’m going to go raid your fridge.”

“Okay,” Kate said, getting up to go to the bathroom. “Join me if you want.”

Alexis wandered into her kitchen and opened up the refrigerator. The cool air from it made her nipples hard. She found some leftover chinese food and she got a fork out of the utensil drawer to eat a few bites. She stopped halfway through a bite to open up the liquor cabinet to see if Kate had replenished her supply of vodka. She usually got a cake-flavored vodka, which always made Alexis smile: cupcake reminder. There was little bit left, maybe three shots. She drank the last three shots and felt much better, less hungry. She wandered into the bathroom, where Kate was just getting into the tub. Alexis admired her long, toned body, the graceful inward curve of her stomach and waist, and the perky slope of her breasts. “You found something to eat?” Kate asked.

At that moment, that reminded her of how much weight she needed to lose. She was thankful Kate liked her the way she was, but still wanted to be leaner for her own self-confidence. “Oh, yeah.That Chinese food in your fridge. How old was it?”

“Like, from last night,” Kate said, cupping some water with her hand, pouring it over her shoulder. “Wanna join me?”

“Sure,” Alexis said. She climbed over the edge of the tub and into the water so that she was facing Kate. The bath was the perfect temperature and filled with bath oils and salts. Alexis sighed and relaxed into it, and Kate took her foot and began rubbing it, and Alexis sighed. “Oh, that’s nice.”

“I was serious about taking you out for dinner. Does tomorrow sound good?”

“It does,” Alexis admitted.

“Okay. Tomorrow night it is.”

* * *

Kate felt run ragged, trying to flag down a cab. It was just easier to leave her Crown Vic at the station, parking it would make her later for the date. She hadn’t anticipated being held up with a robbery so late in her shift. She had texted Alexis, apologizing, and Alexis had been gracious about it, telling her meeting later was fine. They’d have a late dinner together and then she’d take Alexis somewhere special, like to the carriage rides in Central Park or Avery Fischer Hall in Lincoln Center. There was an symphony tonight, and she knew Alexis used to play violin. They usually had a screen and sound system that played the music for the regular people that gathered outside to listen and to have ice cream. But she had to get home and change into nicer clothes.

She texted Alexis.

_I’m just leaving the office. Going home to change clothes, if I can catch a cab._

Alexis texted her back almost immediately.

_Don’t worry, I’m just having a drink at the bar. I won’t be mad at you if you come in your work clothes. :)_

She sighed in relief, and that seemed to do it: a cab pulled over for her. She gave the address of the restaurant and texted Alexis that she was on her way.

In the restaurant, Alexi’s hair was the first thing she spotted at the bar. She passed the hostess station to go to her. “Hi,” she said, relieved. “I thought I was going to be late. I came like I was.”

“And you look beautiful,” Alexis said softly, her gaze and shy smile saying it all. Alexis was wearing a black sequined dress with dark (almost black) gold stripes, and her hair had gentle, soft curls. Kate had to admit, Alexis was quite striking in her make-up. Had had she not noticed her all those years ago, when Castle was still alive? Alexis took her breath away, sometimes, just being there. She knew Alexis wasn’t going to do anything more than hug her quickly, there would be little to no touching tonight other than that. Kate didn’t mind it so much, seeing that she was still in the closet, so to speak.

“You do you, too,” Kate said softly. She had long gotten over caring about what people thought of her affectionate body language towards women; she supposed it came with age, in her thirties and comfort with her sexuality, which was more acceptable these days. “Come on, let’s get our table.”

Alexis took her glass, but left some cash for the bartender at the bar, and they went to the hostess station to check in for Kate’s reservations. “How was your day at work?” Alexis asked. Kate liked the genuine enthusiasm that Alexis had for her career. She had to remind herself not to stroke Alexis’ back in public as they waited for the hostess to pick up the menus.

Their table was, unfortunately, close to the kitchen door, not an enviable position, but Kate didn’t realize it until the hostess had left, being so enamoured with her girlfriend.

“Crap,” Kate muttered.

“What is it?” Alexis asked.

“We’re sitting by the kitchen.”

Alexis just laughed, and put her glass of ice cubes down on the table. “It’s fine. I don’t care. Maybe I should have been the one to make the reservations in my name.”

“Yes, your name does hold a little clout,” Kate said. “I just didn’t want to call in any favors with the health inspector.”

They perused the drink menu and ordered a bottle of wine, and then chose their dinners. She realized she was completely enamoured with Alexis as they talked about Kate’s workday, the books they were reading, what Alexis had done today. When they finished dinner, the server embarrassingly made a foil swan out of their leftovers, and it dawned on her that she hadn’t even noticed the traffic from the servers in the kitchen. As Kate got the check, she realized she could completely fall in love with Alexis, given the chance.

“So where are we going now?” Alexis asked. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

“No,” Kate admitted, “I was thinking, since it’s such a nice night, we could go to the Lincoln Center and listen to the orchestra.”

“Oh, I would love that,” Alexis said, earnestly.

They hailed a cab and Alexis slipped her hand into Kate’s in the backseat, and then slipped her arm around her shoulders. They didn’t speak, they didn’t need to. Kate felt elated at the simple affection that Alexis was showing her in the cab. When they arrived, Alexis opened her purse. “I’ve got the cab,” she said. “And anything else because you got dinner.”

“Aww, cupcake!”

Alexis paid the cabbie and took Kate’s hand, to help her out. They walked into the Lincoln Center promenade. The building was lit up in the early spring night like a beacon, glowing with beautiful amber lighting, and the wide screen showing the orchestra, beginning Mozart’s Requiem. There were people sitting on quilts and blankets and folding lawn chairs, others sitting on the edge of the fountain. They took a spot by the wall, leaning on the building opposing the screen until Alexis had to take her heels off, her feet tender. Out of the way, Kate took Alexis’ hand, and they talked softly just where they could hear each other and not bother the people nearby. As much as Kate liked classical music, she was no expert, but it became magical. She felt Alexis relax, and knew that she was happy.

Was Alexis, in general, happy?

That was a question that concerned Kate. Some of Alexis’ behavior concerned her, the drinking, the inability to get to sleep without a few shots, how she usually looked a little messy, like she had just been drunk napping, the drinking alone. She never talked to Alexis about Castle’s death, although she wanted to so she could gage where Alexis was with it. She honestly had no idea.

All thoughts of Alexis’s happiness were wiped from her mind when Alexis leaned in and whispered, “I want to kiss you right now” in her ear.

Kate, in turn leaned in and whispered back in her girlfriend’s ear. “Yes.”

Alexis’ hand found the back of Kate’s head and cupped her chin, bringing her in. Kate closed her eyes and felt a whisper of Alexis’ warm breath on her cheek, and then her lips against her own.

It started off as a very gentle, very shy kiss, but it felt like the sun was rising and it’s warm rays were hitting her skin, warming it, although when Kate cracked her eyes open, she saw only the darkness. They stood there, leaning on the wall, kissing in the dark of night, and Kate felt so content and full. She only hoped Alexis did as well.

When the symphony was almost over, they left a little early and hailed a cab back to downtown. “Do you want to go to my place or yours?” Kate asked her.

“Yours,” Alexis said.

Kate gave the cabbie the address and snuggled into Alexis’ arm around her shoulders again. “I haven’t been on a date this good since… well… it’s been a while,” Kate confessed to her.

“Good,” Alexis said. “Neither have I. At least since Pi in college.”

“Oh, Pi. I remember how much your father hated him.”

“Yeah,” Alexis chuckled. She still tasted like the wine they had had for dinner. “Oh shit!”

“What?”

“We left our leftovers in the back of the last cab,” Alexis cried.

Kate realized that their foil swans were not there, and the both burst out laughing. “Well, I hope the cabbie enjoys it!”

At Kate’s apartment, the elevator was waiting for them, as if expecting them, and they kissed the whole way up to her dark apartment. The moment Kate got the apartment unlocked, Alexis almost knocked her over as she tried to get the lights on, causing her to laugh. Alexis stopped, and put her shoes on, gaining some extra height, and they kissed again. Kate felt Alexis’ lips soften against her own, and she took that as a cue to try to get the dress off her. She kicked the door shut, and had to admit, she hadn’t studied the dress to figure out where the zipper was due to lack of lighting.

“Where’s the zipper on this thing?” she asked.

“Right here,” Alexis said, lifting her arm up and reaching for it with her other arm.

Kate assisted, and tugged the hem of the dress up, and was astounded when she saw thigh-highs held up by a garter belt and that she wasn’t wearing panties. She tugged the dress further up to reveal a long-line purple and black corset. She gasped at how sexy Alexis was as the redhead pulled her hair out of the dress’ neckhole and discarded it to the floor. “Oh my God… you’re…”

Alexis offered an impish smile. “I told you I went shopping today!”

“You’re exquisite, cupcake,” Kate murmured, taking her back into her arms, to kiss her.

“Your turn,” she whispered between kisses, reaching up to unbutton her blouse. Kate assisted her, eager to get rid of the barriers between herself and this beautiful silk corset Alexis was wearing, just begging to be touched, licked, and nibbled on. Alexis tugged the blouse out of Kate’s slate-grey trouser’s waistband, and revealed her no-nonsense padded white lace bra with simple white lace. Kate grimaced, though; she had dressed in a hurry this morning, putting on a pair of Victoria’s Secret 5 for $27 cotton panties that didn’t quite match her bra; it was chevron orange and green low-rise bikinis. She held her breath as Alexis unbuttoned and unzipped her pants to reveal the underwear.

“I honesly thought I’d have time to get home and change into something a little nicer for you, if we came home,” she admitted, blushing. “I desperately need to do laundry, too.”

Alexis just laughed. “I think it’s cute. And kind of sexy. This is your laundry day underwear?”

“Yeah. And when I get my period.”

“Oh shit,” Alexis laughed. “They’re cute. Really cute. I like it, it’s kind of sexy.”

By now, they kissed over to the bedroom, and Kate pushed her back onto the bed hungrily, and kissed her way down Alexis’ arched neck. It felt sort of nice to know that she wasn’t any less sexy in mismatching underwear. She slipped her hands under the cups of Alexis’s corset and slipped her breasts out of her top to kiss her way down and lick and suck on her nipples, making her gasp in pleasure.

All she wanted was to make her cupcake happy. Alexis was in such a good mood tonight, it felt like they were on Cloud 9. She lifted her head up to kiss Alexis on the lips again, her eyes cloudy and glazed with passion.

Their tongue grazed each other’s, teeth scraping, the fervor growing. Kate felt her panties dampen, and slipped her fingers into Alexis’ cleft to feel that she was getting wet, too. She lifted her fingers to her mouth to taste her, and then slipped her fingers into the redhead’s mouth, who sucked eagerly, a smirk escaping her lips. Kate had never seen anything sexier.

As they explored each other’s bodies, Kate couldn’t turn the edges of her mouth down. Once Kate’s bra and panties had been shed, they took turns teasing and playing with each other’s sensitive spots. It was Alexis who went for the honeypot first, kissing her way down Kate’s inner thigh, her tongue tracing patterns through Kate’s wet folds, making her back arch, paralyzing her with pleasure. Kate’s hand stroked the top of Alexis’ head, knotting her fingers in her hair. Once Kate reach orgasm, Alexis lifted her head, her face beaming with joy and pride.

“You’re so cute,” Kate whispered, stroking her cheek that had her wetness all over the pale girl’s face. Kate herself was tingling all over from the orgasm. “So proud of yourself.”

Alexis blushed. “I need to wipe my face off,” she muttered, getting up to her knees to find the tissue box, her breasts still exposed over the top of the corset.

“How’d you get this on?” Kate asked, getting up onto her knees to slip her arms around Alexis’ middle, pressing her cheek to her pale shoulder blade. Alexis wiped her face off.

“I had some help,” she admitted.

“Your turn,” Kate said, guiding Alexis onto her back, feet near the headboard. She bent down to kiss her.

“You’re awfully smiley tonight,” Alexis noted.

“You make me happy,” Kate said, smiling up at the younger, expectant face.

“Good. You make _me_ happy.”

Kate slipped her hand under Alexis’ knee and then the other other, slipping her legs over her shoulders. She loved Alexis with her mouth, making her shriek, and even then, they reverted back to scissoring. Alexis didn’t try to dominate this time, and it brought them to their full. Kate loved watching Alexis’ fiery curls fanned across the pillow, her eyes shut and mouth agape, her breasts jiggling slightly with each thrust.

Kate felt like she was glowing in the dark she laid down beside Alexis, holding her, kissing her. She played with the steel boning in the bodice of the corset on Alexis, running her fingers up and down them. “This is amazing,” Alexis sighed, sounding like a small child in ecstasy. “I think I like this better.”

“Sex with a woman can be like this,” she said, running her fingers along the purple panel. “You think you just want to be with women?”

“I don’t know,” Alexis sighed. “Ask me again tomorrow.”

Kate kissed her again, tasting a blend of both of them on her lips.

“Don’t you want to be with women all the time?” Alexis asked.

“No. I still enjoy the company of men,” she said. “I like their humor, their physical strength, their jokes, I love their cologne, when I feel tiny and feminine in their arms. It sucks being a woman cop, sometimes. You just want to feel like a girl sometimes when you take off your tin and gun when you get home.”

Alexis nodded. “Yeah, I’d miss that, too,” she sighed. “Do you take off your cuffs with a guy, too?”

“Why, do you want to play with them?” Kate joked. For a moment, she saw a flicker in Alexis’ eyes of hope.

“No-”

“Oh, you do!” Kate cried, laughing, knowing she had something to tease her with. Alexis blushed and turned away, sitting up. Kate grabbed the grossgain ribbon laced in the back of her corset, pulling her back to the bed, undoing the ribbon. “It’s okay. You’re not the first person I’ve dated who wants to play with them.” She began unlacing the corset and kissed Alexis’ ear, pushing her long red hair over her shoulder. “Take a shower with me?”

“Okay,” she said, chuckling with embarrassment.

The corset was discarded and Alexis stood up to take off her heels and roll down the thigh-highs while Kate cleaned up the trail of clothing. “I’m going to start the shower, cupcake. Come and join me.”

“I will in a minute,” Alexis said.

Kate went to the bathroom to turn on the hot water.

She could see herself falling in love with Alexis Castle.

* * *

Alexis pulled Kate’s blouse over her shoulders, and it was slightly tight around her shoulders, and sighed. She felt herself getting shaky.

The feelings she had for Kate, that she was more than just an experiment, she could be falling for her, it wasn’t something she wanted to tell the world. She knew Kate would pressure her to come out. She had a few friends from prep school who had gone their own way, but a lot of her father’s old friends were friends with Kate, and coming out to them… She needed another drink.

She went to the kitchen to find that bottle of vanilla vodka and took the last three shots. It burned her throat and brought tears to her eyes, but then, the heat of the shot crossed her face. It would feel better soon. She could calm down.

She went to the bathroom, where she could hear Kate humming to herself and shed the blouse. “Kate?” she asked, reaching for the shower curtain.

“Yes?”

She pulled back the curtain to reveal Kate’s lithe figure, rivulets of water running down her perfect skin. “Hi,” she said shyly, her nude body tingling. She stepped over the side of the tub to kiss her wet lips, pressing herself against Kate’s wet breasts.

They melded together under the shower spray, kissing gently and sensuously, enjoying the water together.


	7. Promises

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate worries about Alexis' bad habits.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- Andrew Marlow owns Castle and it's characters. I don't. I'm just playing pervertedly in his sandbox and violating his characters for fun!
> 
> My apologies with my last chapter, I did something terribly selfish and an atrocious faux-pas as a fanfiction writer: I forgot to thank all the wonderful people who have visited and read this story! WOWSA! Almost 2000 hits? Holy schnikes! I am so undeserving and thankful! You guys are amazing, so are all the wonderful people who left kudos and comments. Usually, I try to send a personalized thank-you to everyone who leaves a comment on fanfiction.net to show them how appreciative I am that they are reading but that's not quite possible on this site. Comments aren't quite the norm at AO3, and there isn't quite a private messaging system on there, either, but I am so grateful. Just know that I am so humbled and thankful for you all! Love you!

Kate was in a deep slumber, for some reason, she was remembering a case when she and Castle were locked in the trunk of a mob car, arguing, crammed in together, uncomfortably. She remembered the rattling of the road beneath them, and then felt herself physically rocked to the side and she woke up, slowly, hearing a door shut to her right. Then, she smelled something sickly sweet with a hint of rot in it.

She was in her bed, in her own room, and it was about as dark as a bedroom in New York City could get. She lifted her head, and saw a crack of light underneath the bathroom door, and she listened: there was a heaving sound.

She threw back the covers, getting out of bed in her pajamas shorts and a tank top. She had worked late that night, and had texted Alexis about it, apologetically, and Alexis said it was fine, she was at her apartment, waiting. When she got home, Alexis was asleep on the couch, a mostly empty bottle of Jack Daniels was on the coffee table with about an inch of the brown whiskey in the bottle of the tumbler glass from her kitchen. She had managed to drag Alexis back to her bedroom, stripping her down to her panties and the t-shirt she was already wearing, and put her in bed, even though she was exhausted from her fifteen-hour workday today.

Alexis was getting the hard-liquor heaves. Kate knew she’d be hungover in the morning, if she wasn’t still drunk right now. She tentatively knocked on the bathroom door. “Cupcake? Are you alright?”

Alexis heaved deep in her gut a few times, but didn’t answer.

“I’m coming in, okay?” Kate called. She opened the door to find Alexis collapsed in front of the toilet, her swollen cheek resting on the toilet seat. Her skin was so white, it almost seemed green, and she seemed a little puffy.

She knelt down beside Alexis: she was clammy to the touch, and moaned slightly.

“Did you drink too much tonight?” she asked quietly, stroking Alexis’ sweaty red locks.

Memories of her school breaks at home in college with her father after her mother died raced through her head.

Alexis only answered with a moan and a long sigh. A few wisps of her hair were sticking to her forehead. Kate got up and wet down a washcloth under the tap and pressed it to Alexis’ forehead to see if it could make her feel better. Kate briefly remembered a time when she very well could have gone down the same path at her father; thank God Gates had pushed her to seek psychological help. Alexis’ t-shirt was sticking to her skin, too, from the sweat. Her eyes fluttered open at the compress, and Kate saw the brown bile she had vomited. The entire bathroom smelled like curdled stomach contents, Alexis did as well. She flushed the toilet and pulled Alexis back into her arms. She felt clammy all over, and after a few minutes, the bathroom seemed stuffy.

“How bad is it?” Kate asked once Alexis made movement after what seemed like an eternity. Kate held her from the fear that she stopped breathing or a seizure or had blacked out. Just how much whiskey had Alexis consumed before she arrived home? Had she even eaten anything today?

“I’m… I think it’s going away,” Alexis whispered, her eyes slowly blinking.

“Anymore to throw up?”

“Hmm-unh,” she answered, shaking her head.

“Okay, I’m going to run a bath for you, if you feel like it.”

“Don’t make it too hot,” Alexis pleaded as Kate settled her in the corner. Kate ran the bath and poured in some epsom salts in hopes that it would draw the toxins out of her skin and help her sober up faster. Kate made sure it was only lukewarm, but not cold, and helped Alexis stand up, removing her clothes and tossing them in a pile for laundry. She helped Alexis into the tub and she groaned slightly, leaning back, the ends of her hair sinking into the water. Kate shut off the bath faucet and got out a sponge to clean her off with the water.

Now was not the time to talk to Alexis about her drinking; she could very easily pull the same tricks Jim did when Kate was in college after her mother died. He’d pretend he did nothing of the sort of alcoholic behavior when Kate confronted him about it. Was Alexis in this kind of trouble? Was she going down this path? She hoped not.

She washed Alexis’ hair with fresh water from the tap, waking her up, and when she was certain Alexis was clean again, she pulled the stopper and helped Alexis up from the tub and quickly wrapped her in a towel to sit her down with the toilet seat cover down on the toilet.

“You’re so good to me, Kate,” Alexis muttered.

“Cupcake, you’ve gotta sleep this off,” Kate said, getting another towel to dry her. “And I’m going to get some water. The one thing that helps a hangover is water. Do you remember how much you drank tonight?”

Alexis shook her head. “I think three shots.”

“Alexis,” Kate said sternly. “Nobody gets this sick from three shots.”

“Alright,” Alexis bristled, finally coming to life. “I think, um… seven?” Kate knew she was rounding down, but seven did seem like a big number. She dressed her girlfriend in fresh pajamas and helped her to the bed, which no longer carried the sickly sweet smell, thankfully, and tucked her in. “Oh God…”” Alexis sighed. “The room was spinning when you got me into bed earlier. Now, it’s just…”

“I’ll be back in a minute,” Kate said, going to the kitchen to get a large bottle of water. She came back to the bedroom, and gave Alexis the water. “Drink up. All of it.”

Alexis begrudgingly opened her eyes and sat up, twisting the cap off, and tried to swallow it in gulps. Kate patiently waited, and Alexis finally finished the bottle, handing the empty back to Kate, who settled her back into the bed, tucking her in. After recycling the bottle, she climbed back in bed with her and turned off the lights, but couldn’t sleep.

Alexis was younger, yes. And she had at one time, when they were distant and not as close, been preparing to be her stepmother. But that didn’t make her Alexis’ caretaker or parent. This was something she had come to terms when she had cut her father off from communication her senior year in college. She had felt like the parent, then, caring for him, giving him attention when he was acting out in drunken rages towards her, cleaning up after him, and trying and failing (despite her own personal humiliation) to keep people from noticing his drunken behavior in public. She hated this period of time in her life and hating being reminded of it. While Alexis was sober, she was charming and sweet, sexy and irresistible. When she drank, she was quiet and private, and didn’t share much with Kate, and worst of all, she was hiding the amount of drinking she was doing. While she was functional as a human being, making her appointments, living up to what she promised, Kate was still suspicious. Was Alexis a functioning alcoholic? To call her an alcoholic would hurt her feelings she was certain, and the last thing Kate wanted to do to the young woman she might be in love with was hurting her. But the question that kept her awake was when did it become calling a spade a spade?

* * *

Kate did fall asleep, but woke up fitfully, and Alexis was beside her, hair drying in curls, breathing deeply and evenly, asleep. She reached over to touch Alexis’ arm, and it was no longer clammy, although the puffiness had gone down in her face a bit. She breathed a sigh of relief, and turned over to her side. She checked her phone and it said it was 5:26 in the morning. The sun seemed to be coming up, she might as well get up. She threw back the covers and got out of bed to start the coffee and toss Alexis’ things into a quick load of laundry before she left for work.

On her way to the kitchen, she saw the fifth of Jack. It was only half full. Alexis had had a lot more than seven shots, and seven shots was an ungodly amount of alcohol to drink in an evening that even Kate couldn’t imagine drinking herself. She sighed, thinking about the alcohol she was keeping in the apartment, and decided to hide the fifth under her kitchen sink. She tossed the sweat-soaked clothes into the small washing machine in her kitchen and turned on the water before flipping on the coffee pot. She needed a shower, anyway, after last night. She stripped out of her pajamas, that had a whiff of last night’s event on them, and tossed them into the washing machine before tip-toeing naked into her bedroom to go shower. She glanced at Alexis, who was still asleep in the bed, not moving under the covers.

In the shower, Kate realized that it was stupid to throw an accusation at Alexis that she had a problem just yet. She knew that if she did, Alexis would feel hurt and attacked that she thought that of her. She remembered being so wild in her early twenties that a night out meant getting plastered once-in-a-while. Why not Alexis? She was twenty-three.

She turned off the water and pulled back the shower curtain to see Alexis brushing her teeth at the sink.

“Hi,” Alexis said, muffled with the toothbrush in her mouth. Kate reached for a towel to dry off. Alexis’ eyes were puffy and her skin splotchy, circles forming under her eyes. She spat and rinsed out her mouth. “Sorry about last night.”

“I know you’re in your twenties, and it’s fun to go out and drink and party at your age, but do you have to party so hard?” Kate asked, wrapping the towel around her torso.

Alexis nodded, blushing. “I know. I owe you.”

“Big time,” Kate added in, stepping the over the side of the tub to kiss her quickly. “Tonight.”

Alexis smirked. “You know that I will, don’t worry.”

Kate felt entirely silly thinking that Alexis was an alcoholic at all. It was hard to tell the difference at her age. Seeing that Friday ended up being a pretty slow day in her precinct, she texted Alexis that she was going to pick up something to cook for her for dinner and they could chill out and watch a movie over some ice cream. Alexis agreed.

She picked up some tomatoes, spinach, tomato paste, a fresh block of a parmesean cheese, linguine noodles, and a gallon of chocolate ice cream when she left work. Alexis texted her back that she was bringing the wine, and Kate trusted her to pick a good one.

But when she unlocked the door to her apartment, she found Alexis laid out across the couch with the TV on, and her eyes were closed. The bottle of red wine was almost empty.

Shit, Kate thought. “Alexis?”

“Huh?” Alexis asked, sitting up drunkenly. She smiled, sheepishly. “Hey! Sorry, I sort of started on the wine.”

“Alexis!” Kate cried, disappointed. “After last night-”

Alexis’ smile fell. “I thought you didn’t have a problem with it!”

“I do have a problem with it when I can’t sleep because you’re hurling in my bathroom at two in the morning and I have to give you a bath and do laundry first thing in the morning because I smell like your puke!” Kate snapped, slamming the brown paper grocery sack onto the kitchen counter.

“I’m not drinking hard liquor!” Alexis protested. “I’ll be sober in a few hours!”

“I think you have a problem,” Kate said, angrily unloading the grocery items into the refrigerator. “You’re behaving just like my dad, claiming you don’t have a problem!”

“Hey, I happen to like red wine,” Alexis slurred, pointing an accusatory finger in Kate's direction, her sparkly blue eyes dulled and narrowed.

“I thought we could have a nice, romantic, quiet dinner and relax, and forget last night ever happened, but here you are, completely sloshed before I even walk in the door!” Kate shouted, throwing the gallon of ice cream into the freezer, knocking bags of frozen vegetables out. She grabbed them and threw them back in to knock out another two bags of frozen peas. She wasn’t sure exactly why she was so angry. “I thought I could trust you with at least wine!” More shit fell out of the freezer. “ _Goddamnit_!” She slammed the freezer door shut, and didn’t feel hungry enough to make dinner anymore. The freezer door bounced back open. Kate realized Alexis was silent on the couch.

She stopped, watching Alexis glare at the floor, arms crossed over her chest. “Fine,” she snapped. “I’m gone. I have better shit I could be doing than having you treat me like shit because I had a little wine-”

“A _little_? Jesus Christ, Alexis, you practically drank the whole goddamn bottle!”

A look of embarrassment, tears, and then, finally fury passed Alexis’ face and she stood up. “Oh fuck you, Kate, if you think you have any right to judge me! Did you think I was going to be dishonest with you and drink after I left tonight?” She stumbled out from behind the coffee table.

“Don’t kid yourself, we spend the night together more often than not! You fuck me, if you didn’t remember, Alexis! We’re a couple, not just friends, if you just come out of the goddamn closet!”

“There’s no closet for me to come out of, I’m not gay!” Alexis snarled, almost nose-to-nose with Kate.

Kate could smell the wine on her breath, and her cheeks were still splotchy, but all Kate could focus on were those lips. Her pillowy, pretty soft lips. “I’m not gay either, but just two nights ago, you squirted in my face and loved it.”

The only word that came out of Alexis’ mouth was all she needed: “ _Bitch._ ”

Kate wanted to smack some sense across her face, to get out her frustration, when it was Alexis that grabbed her head and pressed one of those scorching-hot kisses to Kate’s mouth.

With all the fury inside her, she kissed Alexis back, teeth scraping, tongues fighting for dominance, and before she knew it, they were on the couch, their clothes being torn off. In a moment of clarity, it hit Kate: Alexis was drunk. If they had sex right now, it was rape, and she was raping Alexis.

“Alexis-” Kate murmured between kisses. “Alexis, stop! Cupcake!”

Alexis pulled back, her eyes drunkenly darting back and forth. "What?"

“No,” Kate uttered. “Stop. This is wrong right now.”

Alexis withdrew.

“We’re not having sex while you’re drunk,” Kate said, pushing her off and standing up.

“You need an excuse to humiliate me?” Alexis snapped. "You've done a damn good job tonight!"

“No, I need an excuse not to take advantage of you,” she said, picking up her top that had been ripped off. “I will never have sex with you while you’re drunk.”

Alexis looked horrified and Kate retreated to the bedroom to take a hot bath and to try to relax from this fight. It really was the first fight they had ever had. It was what Jim did: picked a fight, tried to make her feel like she was being silly and overdramatic when she found him drunk on the couch after class. After her mother died, she transferred out of Stanford (her dream school), like an idiot, to NYU, in an attempt to take care of him. He treated her like shit when he was drunk. She sat down on her bed to calm down, rubbing her eye sockets with the heels of her palms.

“Why are we fighting?” Alexis asked, coming into the bedroom. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Kate sighed. “I honestly thought you’d make an effort to find other things to do than get drunk if you had a bad enough experience, I thought last night was it. You were so hungover this morning… I was so worried last night.”

“I’m sorry,” Alexis said softly, sitting down beside her on the bed. “You didn’t tell me that.”

“It just reminded me of the period of time after my mother died and my dad fell into the bottle, Lex.” She rubbed Alexis’ arm. “Dad got so bad about it…”

“What happened?” Alexis asked quietly, lacing her fingers between Kate’s.

“I hate thinking about that period of time,” Kate admitted. “It was embarrassing. I was enabling him and we were so enmeshed, I finally just decided I had enough and I walked out. We didn’t talk for another four years, when he got sober.”

“I didn’t know that,” Alexis admitted.

“He was awful. Terrible. He could be really cruel and abusive when he was drinking, and then when he sobered up, I’d confront him and he was appalled and so hurt at the idea that I’d ever accuse him of the things he said and did to me. I thought he was blacking out.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alexis asked quietly.

Kate bit her lips together. “It started out with him criticizing the way I dressed, the weird colors I’d put in my hair, changing my major to criminal justice over pre-law, and then… he started getting really mean. He’d tell me I was just a perverted dyke and doing disgusting things with women for attention from men, and then he’d tell me it was my fault my mother died, because I went across the country to Stanford, and she took up Take Back Our Neighborhood to fill the gap in her life when I was gone. He tried to hit me, but I usually was able to block him and get away. But it was so embarrassing when he was so drunk, he’d walk into walls and doors and fall down stairs. And then, he walked into the wrong apartment building, and got belligerent with the bellboy who wouldn’t let him in.” Kate felt the angry, humiliating tears rush her eyes. “I’ll never forget when the police called me to come bail him out of the drunk tank, and I came in to see him, he told me I could rot in hell with the rest of the dykes and fake lesbians for all the sins I was committing in front of those cops, then lectured me about how I was either gay or straight, I needed to make up my mind, not pussyfoot around with both men and women. It was so humiliating. Trust me, he used his religion to hurt me, too, bringing up the bible when he was violently drunk, how I was committing sins, crap like that.. I walked out of the police station and told the cops I’d let him sober up before I bailed him out and took him home. He claimed he didn’t remember a damn thing the next day and he'd never say those things. That happened four more times before I finally just said, ‘Look, I’m done.’ And I walked out. I moved out of the apartment and got my own place, and I didn’t talk to him for four years after that. That’s why we’re kind of distant today, not really as close as father and daughter should be. But we try.”

Alexis nuzzled her head into her shoulder. “What changed?”

“He did,” Kate admitted. “He went to AA and got sober and he tracked me down and apologized to me. He admitted he knew what he was saying and how much he was judging me when he really had no right. He wasn’t always blacking out, but drinking gave him an excuse to criticize me. He said it felt like he was watching a really bad movie and some idiot that looked like him was abusing his only child. But I remember when I saw him in the drunk tank, I didn’t even recognize him. He wasn’t my father anymore, just some gross, evil caricature of him. And God, if he wasn’t so mean to me because he knew I was afraid to leave him alone until it finally got bad enough. And that’s what happened, I decided I had to take care of myself and he wasn't good for me anymore.”

“Did you forgive him?”

“Not initially, but eventually.”

“Kate, I didn’t know. You never told me about that.”

“Well, I just did. That’s why it hurts me so much that you have to drink every time we have sex. I just want a real, intimate moment with you, Alexis. Sober, and it’s just us,” Kate muttered, wiping her tears with the back of her free hand. “I know what it’s like, too. Trust me, there were a few periods of time when I could have gone down that path because I wasn’t being honest with myself. Like… with your father. I loved him but I couldn’t admit it. And I know it hurts you, too. I know you miss him.”

“Let’s not talk about him,” Alexis whispered. “Please?”

“Why don’t you want to talk about him with me?”

“Because… I’d have to admit he’s dead,” she whispered. “I can’t. It’s like he’s off on some crazy adventure, and I’m just waiting for him to come home.”

Kate slipped her arms around Alexis, and felt her shiver. “You can cry with me.”

“No, I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. Who else is there to cry with? Who else was closer to him than you and me?”

Alexis wriggled in her arms, almost resisting. “I replay those events over and over in my head, the day that he died, the last time I saw him, and if I could have done something differently-”

“No,” Kate interrupted. “There is nothing you could have done. Don’t think like that. You’re not responsible for everything.”

“I know. I gave it all up. I thought freedom would be a nice change, but… It’s not. All this free time… It’s nothing. I didn’t know I could be so bored and...”

“Maybe it’s being bored that’s got you drinking so much,” Kate said. “Maybe you need something else to do during the day.”

“You’re a good distraction,” Alexis uttered, looking up into Kate’s eyes. Her eyes were still dull, moving slowly, and Kate could smell the wine still on her breath.

“No,” Kate said, pressing a finger to her lips to keep them away from hers. “No, I want to be a part of your life, not your distraction. I want you to do something in your free time so I can be the one that asks about your day. And enjoys your company at night, and-”

Alexis sighed. “Fine.” She stood up, stiff.

“Alexis... Cupcake… Have you considered finishing your degree and re-enrolling at Columbia?” Kate asked gently.

Alexis was quiet for a long time. “Well… I have,” she said quietly. “I love the idea of it, but, it just seems like such a huge hurdle and I don’t know if I could do it right now.”

“How about some baby steps first, huh?” Kate offered. She needed her self-esteem built up and it had to be Kate doing it for her. “How about that art gallery’s workshop? You’ll put your name in? You’re an amazing artist, Lex, really you are.” She took her girlfriend’s hand and squeezed. “I want other people to see in you what I do. A really beautiful young lady who’s a talented artist and really smart and caring good person, too. I just feel like you’re stagnating and falling into a really dark hole when you’re not focusing on all the good things you are and can be.”

Alexis hugged her and buried her face into Kate’s neck. Kate felt her body shudder and realized she was sobbing, and swayed. Kate rubbed her back.

“You’ll be okay. You’ve got me,” Kate said softly, kissing her hair. “You’re not alone, Alexis. I promise.”

* * *

 

Kate had let Alexis sleep off the wine in her bed after setting up the coffee maker and watching Kimmel. She hadn’t eaten dinner, but wasn’t quite hungry for it, either. She curled up behind Alexis, spooning her, and kissed her sleeping girlfriend on the cheek, smoothing her hair back. She was exhausted from that sudden burst of anger with Alexis earlier tonight, and felt a little guilty for losing her temper like that. The closer she got to Alexis, the more confused she felt: was she in love with Alexis, or was she pitying her and trying to mother her? She fell asleep out of exhaustion, spooning Alexis.

She awoke in the darkness to a hand caressing her arm. “Lex?”

“Yeah? It’s me,” Alexis silhouette was beside her in the bed.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m sober,” Alexis admitted. “I’m sorry about tonight.”

“I am, too,” Kate admitted, reaching up for Alexis’ face, cupping her cheek. She felt Alexis’ lips gently kiss her palm. “I didn’t mean to blow up like that and yell at you.”

“It’s okay, I needed it,” Alexis said, her hand grazing the section of skin under Kate’s belly button that was expose to the air between the hem of her top and the waistband of her boxer shorts. Kate shivered from the touch. “I think maybe I need to stop drinking for a while. You think that’s a good idea?”

“Yeah, I do,” Kate admitted as Alexis’ hand brushed up under her top. “I’ll stop drinking with you okay? We’ll both go dry together. For a month?”

“For three months,” Alexis said. “I’ll do it. I’ll make you proud.” She leaned forward and kissed Kate on the lips gently, her hand brushing up to Kate’s breast.

“I’m proud of you already, Cupcake,” Kate admitted, enjoying the feeling of Alexis’ thumb brushing her nipples. She sighed contentedly.

“Why? I’m a do-nothing heiress-”

“Stop that. I don’t want to hear that talk,” Kate said. “You paint. Beautifully. That’s something you do that I love.” She slipped her hand behind Alexis’ head to bring her face down to hers and kissed her, lifting her head to press her mouth harder against Alexis’. She ran her tongue along Alexis’ lips as they kissed until she opened her mouth for her. As they kissed passionately, Alexis pushed her top up until her breasts were exposed, and kissed her way down to lavish her breasts with hot open-mouthed kisses. Kate’s eyes rolled up into the back of her head, moaning softly, her hand tangling in the back of Alexis’ hair. Her nipples hardened under the teasing of Alexis’ hot mouth, tongue darting around her areola. Alexis laved the other breast with an equal amount of kisses and Kate used her other hand to join the other in Alexis’ hair, gently scraping her nails through Alexis’ scalp. Her hands slipped down to the waistband of her shorts, causing goosebumps to cross the sensitive flesh above her mons.

“Lift your hips up,” Alexis whispered, her fingers slipping under the elastic, pulling down. Kate lifted her hips and Alexis took her shorts and panties off, and Alexis’ fingers made her gasp as they trailed slowly, ghosting down to Kate’s cleft, slipping inside her wetness, playing with her sensitive lips and clit, shooting white-hot stars of pleasure through Kate’s body.

“You’re going to make me scream!” Kate panted.

“Good, that’s the plan,” Alexis said, her fingers slipping into Kate’s entrance, searching for her G-spot with two digits. She began pumping them in and out, her thumb playing with Kate’s nub, and Alexis watched, her lips slightly parted in her own excitement. She climbed between Kate’s legs and lowered her head so that her lips met Kate’s core. Her tongue grazed Kate’s clit while her fingers continued to pump. Kate felt the orgasm take over like a tidal waves, her muscles clenching, then the endorphins flushing her whole body with tingly excitement. She wrapped her legs around Alexis’ head as she came down.

“Oh, Cupcake, that was amazing,” Kate sighed. She felt Alexis’ tongue spear her entrance and she cried out.

“That’s my apology,” Alexis said, lifting her head. Kate stroked the crown of the younger woman’s hair, letting go with her legs as Alexis kissed her way up to Kate’s belly button, and rested her chin on it.

“Let me show you how I accept that apology,” Kate said throatily, lifting the tank top off her arms and over her head. She made quick work of getting Alexis’ short nightgown off her. “You are an amazing lover, sweetheart.”

“I had a good teacher,” Alexis replied, as Kate’s hands slipped into the back of her panties, cupping her butt. Kate kissed her, tasting herself on Alexis’ lips, her breasts brushing the other woman’s. They kissed for a while, getting hot again as Kate slipped her finger inside her cheeks. Alexis had been fucked in the ass before, Kate felt it, eliciting a high whimper out of Alexis. She moaned at the thought of a strap-on penetrating the girl’s asshole.

“You’ve been fucked there, haven’t you?” Kate murmured in her ear. Damn it if she didn’t have a strap on to fuck that little hole right now.

“Yes,” Alexis admitted.

She slid her fingers further down Alexis’ taint to her entrance, which was soaking wet and pushed her way in. Alexis’ head lolled back, eyes squeezed shut, gasping sighs of pleasure. “Oh, Kate!” she moaned. “Yes!”

“I’m not done with you, yet,” she admitted. She got up from the bed, slipping her fingers out. “Be right back,” she promised, pressing a light kiss to her mouth, going to the bathroom. She retrieved the double-ended vibrator, and made her way back to the bed. They didn’t need lube at this point.

Alexis was sitting on the edge of the bed, taking her panties off, now completely naked. She stood up and they kissed passionately, holding each other. Kate kissed her way down Alexis’ arched neck, the redhead’s pulse fluttering against her lips.  She kissed down to her breasts, lifting them up to attend to them and the nipples already hard under her mouth. Kate slipped down to her knees and slipped a hand under Alexis’ knee, putting the leg over her shoulder. She put one end of the vibrator into her entrance, and turned it on, strangled cries erupted from Alexis’ mouth. Kate was pleased, she slipped her fingers into the coarse hair to play with her clit, other hand angling the vibrator, pumping it in and out. She guided a trembling Alexis back to the bed, where she sat her ass on the edge, legs parted so that Kate could fuck her with the vibrator.

“Scissor me,” Alexis begged between gasps. “I want to feel your clit on mine.”

“Of course,” Kate replied, climbing up to her knees, a hungry look on her face. She slipped a leg atop Alexis’ thigh and slid the other end of the vibrator into herself, a tremor running through her body. “Scoot up.”

Alexis slid up the bed, and the vibrator slipped out of Kate’s entrance. She slipped the vibrator back into herself, and then began undulating her torso, crying out in pleasure and delight. Alexis’ cried echoed that, eyes squeezing shut in the darkness, lips parted. She reached up and grabbed Kate’s breasts, they shrieked in delight together, hitting their climaxes together.

As they came down and pulled apart, the vibrator being discarded to the floor until it could be washed and cleaned. Kate laid down beside Alexis, kissing her, pulling her close, murmuring words of affection with each other with the tingling of endorphins running through both of them.

“My beautiful Cupcake,” Kate whispered.

“Tell me you love me,” Alexis whispered.

“I do,” Kate said, feeling high from the orgasm, grinning into the kisses. “I love you, Alexis.”

“I love you, too,” Alexis replied, grinning back as they kissed, feeling the passion of love running through both of them.

Kate didn’t know she had ever been so happy, but happiness, like the post-orgasmic high, is fleeting and things are said that aren’t always meant. But at that moment, they were not concerned with the difficulties of life and depression and coming out of the closet. All that existed for the two of them was this little apartment in Gramercy Park, their whole world, if only until dawn.

 


	8. Inescapable

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alexis' beginning attempts at sobriety are a challenge.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer- I don't own Castle, I'm just being a perv with the characters.
> 
> Sorry to disappoint, but there's no sex in this chapter, but it's important to the plot.
> 
> Thank you all so much for the hits! WOW! I can't believe I'm writing a story with over 2500 hits on it here on AO3! This is so cool! Y'all are the best! XOXO!

Alexis climbed the steps out of the subway stop and onto the street. It was so bright, it hurt her eyes. She had to put her sunglasses on. Luckily, she had remembered her big Jackie O sunglasses which covered most of her eye sockets.

This no drinking thing kind of sucked, but she was getting through it when she stayed home and painted or went over to Kate’s. The first few days, she couldn’t sleep. At Kate’s apartment, she’d just stare at the ceiling from the bed while Kate breathed deeply, enjoying her rest. Alexis sometimes got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower in hopes that would make her sleepy. It didn’t. Her brain kept on running. She hadn’t realized how much she depended on alcohol to make herself sleep. Falling asleep and passing out were synonymous. She was so thankful she didn’t have to work a boring office job to support herself: she was able to go home and take a nap in the afternoon. But then, the nightmares started.

Those were terrible. Most of the time, they consisted of her father, being very angry with her, disgusted, and blaming her for seducing Kate. Kate hated her, too, and she and her father walked away, Alexis was screaming for her father to come back to her. The worst part of it all was she couldn’t remember his voice, exactly.

They said when a person you loved died, the first thing you forgot about them was their voice. She woke up in tears, sometimes, and then remembered where she was, and it was only a dream. But it disturbed her that she couldn’t remember his voice exactly. She wasn’t an artist, but she could draw his face, his smile, his hands. Sometimes, her nightmares woke Kate. Kate held her and they talked about her father because if she didn’t, she’d take a few shots to put herself to sleep. It was as if her brain was screaming for whiskey.

Kate’s precinct was at the end of the block. The Meatpacking District wasn’t so bad in the daytime. It was actually pretty trendy.

In the precinct, she took the elevator to the fourth floor, passing the homicide department, and saw Kate’s office door with Kate’s name on it: CAPTAIN K. BECKETT, NYPD. Kate was at work on her computer, eyes glued to the screen. God, Kate was so beautiful. Alexis tapped on the glass on the door, making Kate look up. Her face broke into a smile when her eyes landed on Alexis. She waved a hand to gesture for her to come in

“Hi,” Alexis said, opening her arms for a hug. She sure as hell wasn’t going to kiss her or caress her girlfriend in public, but a short hug was fine.

“Good to see you. Did you get a good nap in this afternoon?” Kate asked.

“Yeah, I did,” Alexis said, taking a seat.

“Well, what do you want to do tonight? I was thinking we could go to Coney Island and just be dorks or something,” she said. “Take in a few roller coasters, if you’re up to it.”

“Um actually, Kate, I want to tell you something,” Alexis said, feeling nervous. Of course Kate wouldn’t laugh or discourage her, but it seemed so easy to do so. “Um… I decided to enter the workshop today. I paid my fee and I submitted something.”

Kate’s face broke into excitement and relief. “I’m so proud of you, cupcake!” she cried, slipping a hand over Alexis’. “I can’t wait! Which one?”

“Which gallery? Or which piece?”

“Both.”

“Well, I’m going to the Bruckner Gallery for mine, and this piece I submitted was… the painting of you from your college photoshoot.”

Kate blushed, but laughed. “Well, it’s not my face,” she admitted.

“Are you okay with that?” Alexis asked, catching her lower lip between her teeth.

“Of course,” she said. “I can’t wait to be there to support my girlfriend. They’re going to love you-”

“Hey! Beckett!”

Lieutenant Esposito stood in the doorway. Alexis jerked her hand away from Kate’s. Oh shit, she thought. Kate didn’t seem to notice, but she stood up and darted across the room to his arms to hug him. “Javi, what are you doing all the way out here?” she cried, gleefully embracing him.

“I come bearing news. Alexis! Hi! Why haven’t you come to see me at the Twelfth, yet?” Esposito asked.

“Hi,” she said, standing up, unable to look him in the eye, clutching her purse between her hands. “It’s nice to see you, again.”  
“If I had known how to get in touch with you… You know that we’re dying to see you, right?”

“Oh sure,” Alexis said, finally lifting her eyes, afraid to look into her father’s old friend’s face. Did he know? The key to the soul was in a person’s eyes. If he knew, she’d see it in his face. When she finally did, she saw that he looked happy to see her, not suspicious. “I’m sorry, I’m just somebody’s kid-”

“You’re family,” he said. “As much as we teased Castle about not being a cop, you know he sort of was.”

“Yeah,” she agreed.

“So what’s this big news, Javi? You’re getting your own precinct?” Kate asked.

“No, actually… it’s Jenny. She had her baby.”

“What? You’re kidding!”

“Just about an hour ago.”

“Why wasn’t I called?” Kate moaned.

“She went into the hospital about ten this morning, and the baby came really quickly.”

“I want to know all about it! Where’s Sarah Grace? What did they name the baby? Is it a boy or a girl?”

“Another girl. Kevin’s gonna have his hands full. And they named her Savannah Josephine,” Espo said.

“Aw, I love it!” Kate cried. “What about my goddaughter?”

“Sarah Grace? She’s going to stay at her grandmother’s tonight,” he said. “But they’re bringing her to the hospital to meet Savannah Jo. That’s what they’re calling her.”

Kate practically squeaked over the news of the baby. “Savannah Jo! That’s so sweet! I think I’m going to sneak out a little early and go see them. Wanna go?” she asked Alexis.

Alexis shook her head. “No, not my thing.”

“Alexis was just telling me that we-”

“I just stopped by. Not doing much these days, trying to decide if I’m going to go back to school,” Alexis interrupted, terrified that Kate was going to give away too much. If her father’s old friends found out she was sleeping with Kate, she wasn’t sure she’d survive it. “I’m get going. It’s good to see you, Kate.”

“You too,” Kate replied.

Esposito held his arms open for a hug from her, and she really had no choice but to oblige. “Dont be a stranger,” he said, squeezing her.

“I won’t,” Alexis said. “Bye!”

She trekked out the door, her head spinning.

 _Jesus Fuck I need a drink,_ she thought. And what the fuck was Kate doing referring to the two of them as “we” in front of Esposito?

She started back down the street, her legs shaking, head spinning, spots in her vision. She loved Kate, but she wasn’t sure she wanted the world to know she wasn’t completely straight. Not perfect Alexis Castle. She rounded the corner, sweating in her cute little cotton dress, and got a text.

_Cupcake, why’d you leave without even a hug goodbye?_

She almost collapsed.

“That does it,” she mumbled. There was a bar across the street. Maybe she needed some food, maybe a nap, but right now… She walked into the door and went straight to the bar.

“What can I get ya?” the bartender asked.

“Can I get a double whiskey, straight?” she asked. “Jim Beam will do.”

“Coming right up,” he said. “Do you want a lunch menu?”

She almost said no, but then swallowed. She had had a Pop Tart this morning, but that was it. “Um, yes, please.”

He slid the menu across the bar to her, although she couldn’t really concentrate until she had something to soothe her nerves. She greedily watched the bartender, working painfully slowly, as he poured two shots. _Come on, come on,_ she thought crankily as the amber liquid filled the shot glasses.

“Double whiskey straight,” he said, setting the shot glasses down in front of her.

“Thank you,” she muttered, taking one and throwing it back. The familiar burn coated her throat and then scorched her throat, a fiery trail burning into her chest. She sighed in relief, waiting for the sweet relief of her nerves being dulled. Then, she took the next one, another sigh coming out of her mouth at the pain and then the release. The whole thing with her father’s old friends finding out she was fucking a woman didn’t matter so much, now. Yeah, she had had just ruined six days sober, but it was worth it. If she brushed her teeth and rinsed out her mouth, the next person down the street wouldn’t know she had just had a drink. She looked at the menu, and was able to focus on it, finally. A sandwich sounded good right about now. Maybe with some fries or chips. Yeah, she’d be fine, now.

* * *

“You want to tell me what all that was about?” Javi asked Kate. Kate was still recovering from the sting of being frozen out by Alexis just now. She was a little hurt by that, but Javi didn’t know.

“Nothing,” Kate said.

“Beckett…  Kate, you know that’s wrong,” Javi said.

“Okay, fine, I’m seeing her, is that what you wanted me to say?” Kate asked. “Besides, how did you know?”

“You were standing too close to her. I’m a detective, you know that.”

Kate felt the embarrassment that not only was Alexis running away, she was ashamed of her... _still_.

“Kate, it’s almost incest.”

“But it’s not,” she responded indignantly. “I hardly knew her when Castle and I were together, and we never got around to getting married… You only think it’s gross because it’s same-sex, don’t you?”

“You’re being really childish Kate, I’ve known you see women since we were both newb detectives. I’ve never judged you. Not once.”

Kate sighed, dejected. “You saw how she just iced me out,” Kate muttering.

“She’s just scared. She’s not out, is she?”

Kate shook her head. “I’m her first woman. I’m pretty sure.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Just give her time.”

“I know things are kind of tough for her right now,” Kate said. “I’m trying to be understanding, but how much is too much? I don’t know if you know how it feels to be in the closet-”

“No, I don’t know exactly, but if she’s spending time with you, only you, and she’s not dating around, she needs to be honest. It’s not fair to you to be a dirty little secret.”

“I don’t want that, either,” she admitted. “I love her but…”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa! You _love_ her?”

Kate nodded and sighed. “I do. We’re close, and she’s still dealing with Castle’s death and I’m trying to help her through, but… doesn’t she understand that nobody’s going to stop caring for her if she comes out?”

“Is she… like… completely gay or just…”

“Bisexual? Yes, like me. But I think she’s just dabbling. She’s not playing in the big leagues. Maybe this is just a phase for her and she’s experimenting. God, I hate feeling like this. Like she doesn’t feel for me the way I feel for her.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said, taking the seat Alexis had just been in. “I doubt Alexis would ever do something half-assed, though. That’s not like her at all.”

It didn’t seem like it, but Kate felt like she deserved more than that. She crossed her arms and went behind her desk.

“You wanna get out of here and go see Savannah Jo when work’s over?”

Kate looked up at her old friend, and saw a half-smile on his face. She appreciated that he had never objectified her same-sex attractions and had always been accepting of her for who she was. “Well, I’m the boss, so I can make the rules,” Kate said, picking up her keys and her purse. “I’m driving, just let me lock up for the night!”

* * *

Alexis was trying to sketch out some more canvases when she heard Kate’s key in the door to the loft.

“Kate?” she called.

“Hi, cupcake!” Kate called back. “I picked up dinner!”

“Oh good, I’m starving!” Alexis called back. “Did you work late?”

“No, I didn’t,” Kate said. Alexis came out of the office-turned-studio to see Kate setting a large paper bag down on the counter. “I got Mexican!”

“Did you get queso dip and chips, too?” Alexis asked. “Those sound heavenly right now!”

“Of course! I know you!” Kate cried, going to the cabinet to get a glass out. “Want something to drink?”

“I’ve got a soda in studio,” Alexis admitted, going back into the room to get her drink. She saw the small flask of whiskey she had bought this afternoon, just in case, it was still unopened, but she panicked. She stashed it quickly in the cabinet to the desk pushed up against the wall. She’d have to remember that.

In the kitchen, Kate was getting out the tacos and plating them.

“Mmm,” Alexis noted, inhaling as Kate pulled the foil back on the taco. “That smells delicious! I can’t wait to dig in!”

“Here,” she said, pushing the plate in Alexis’ direction. Alexis took a bar stool and lifted the taco to her mouth: it had sour cream on it, just enough lettuce and tomato, and grilled chicken, her favorite. She bit in and it melted on her tongue as she chewed it up.

“I think I’m going to have a food orgasm,” she admitted.

“Your eyes aren’t as bright,” Kate noted, picking up a chip, dunking it in the queso, studying her face.

Alexis felt a quick pang of panic; had she seen her going into that bar this afternoon? She had to come back with something, fast. “I spent the afternoon masturbating,” she tried to joke.

“Ew, just what I wanted to hear over dinner,” Kate remarked. But, she smiled.

 _She bought it,_ Alexis thought. “You saw the new baby?”

“Savannah Jo,” Kate sighed. “I got to hold her, too! She’s so sweet! And she smelled like baby powder and vanilla and I just wanted to… eat her up! Ah!”

“Babies are cute,” Alexis agreed.

“God, they really are. And it got me thinking, I’m getting to that age where I’m almost too old to have a baby. I’ve only got a few more years before I’m too old-”

“You’re not old!” Alexis cried. “You’re beautiful!”

“Well, one of these days, I might slip into menopause!”

“Wait a second, how old are you, again?”

“I’m thirty-seven,” Kate said. “And I’m in a good place in my career, and we’re happy together, aren’t we?”

“What?” Alexis asked, alarmed. Was Kate indicating what she thought she was indicating?

“I think we should talk about the future. Like, about plans. I want a baby, Alexis,” Kate said. “I want to get pregnant and go through all that fun pregnancy stuff, like baby registries and baby showers, and diaper cakes, and have a baby of my own.”

“Aren’t babies like little drunk adults?” Alexis retorted. “They’re so helpless and needy and you never sleep-”

“I’m okay with that,” Kate said, nodding to herself, getting her own taco. “The idea of kids kind of scared me a few years ago, but I always thought I’d have them. And right now is just the best time for me before I get too old.”

“Well, no offense, but I can’t father a child,” Alexis said.

“Same-sex couples have babies all the time,” Kate waved it off. “All we’d need is a sperm donor. New York’s a really liberal state anyway. And we could get married! We could move in together, and I’d have a baby, then you could have one, and we’d raise them together, and you’d paint-”

“Hold up!” Alexis cried, tossing her hands in the air. That taco didn’t look so appetizing now. “Wait a second! Who says I’m going to have a baby right now?”

Kate looked taken aback. “Well… Cupcake, I don’t mean like... tomorrow. This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly.”

“Yeah! Definitely not!” Alexis cried. It sounded gross: a screaming little baby, covered in goo, a germ factory, screaming and unable to speak… Why in the world did Kate want that?

“You want kids, don’t you?”

“Uh… In the abstract, yes… But I don’t see myself becoming a mom right now. I‘ve got so much shit to deal with right now, Kate.”

Kate sighed. “Well… I guess you’re right. Why don’t we just put that on the backburner for a year or so?”

A year didn’t seem long enough to Alexis. “I…” she groaned slightly at the thought of motherhood, even if it was with a partner. She’s be the one to stay at home and take care of the baby while Kate worked. Kids were always into things, her paints would be ruined, the baby would get into them eventually.

“Lex, I’m here for you right now because you need me and want to get sober, and I’m okay with that. It’s a lot of emotional work for both of us, and I want to be here to support you, even though it’s not easy. It’s part of being in a relationship with a person. But… I want a baby. I don’t want to miss my chance.”

“Oh, you’re trying to emotionally blackmail me into having a baby with you!” Alexis snapped, pushing away from the counter.

“No, I’m not, but it’s important to me, just like getting sober is important to you!”

“We’ve only been together a few weeks, Kate!”

“Six weeks,” Kate said darkly. “I see it’s all about you in this relationship, isn’t it? Your needs, what you’re comfortable with-”

“It’s not!” Alexis cried. “I just seriously cannot ever see myself having a kid right now- look, you’d be the one to go to work and I’d be the one stuck at home taking care of it! I want to paint and- and-” Her mind went blank.

“You’re being so selfish!” Kate cried, looking hurt. “My needs mean nothing, don’t they-”

“Is it really a need? To reproduce?”

“Yes, Alexis. It is! My biological clock is ticking really loud in my ears-”

“Loudly. It’s an adjective,” Alexis snarked.

“You sound just like your father,” Kate mumbled.

“What did you just say?” Alexis asked, aghast. She _sounded_ like her father?

“I… I said you’re just like your father, correcting my grammar,” she said slowly. Kate’s voice flinched.

Kate was her lover. And her father’s lover. It all seemed so messed up and weird to her suddenly.

“I don’t know how I’d have a baby right now. I’ve got no father, no mother…” she paused. “I was abandoned by Meredith. I don’t know that it’s a good idea to have a baby when you’re not one-hundred percent sure you want one, Kate. We have to be all in this together. Can you just give me some time to think about it?”

“Sure. Of course, cupcake,” Kate said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I love this song, and it's inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFnIuBB9YAo


	9. Workshop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The relationship hits some challenges at the workshop

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer -- I don't own Castle.
> 
> A/N- Sorry, I've been so depressed and stressed (two major life events happened to me and no, I'm not talking about it right now) that when I did work on this story, I didn't like the direction it was heading. This was hard for me to write because I had to make one of the characters do something completely unlikeable to keep the story going, but hopefully, I will redeem her (spoiler alert). I've gotten some people asking me to continue, and while I've tried, I don't know if I love the direction this story is going in. That's part of the reason I haven't posted in long time. I may take this chapter down in the end, but we'll see for now, if it goes over well with you readers. Let me know if you want this to continue in the direction it's going. Otherwise, I'm taking this chapter down and I'm going to attempt a rewrite of it.

Alexis opened her eyes and it was early morning. She had taken an Ambien early because Kate was working late due to a case and she didn’t want to be tempted to get drunk.

She had fallen asleep alone, but when she opened her eyes, Kate was in the sheets next to her.

She gazed at Kate and felt guilty: she loved this really beautiful, confident, out-of-the-closet woman. She didn’t hide her sexual identity and she didn’t wave it like a banner. She was humble about it but not ashamed, something Alexis couldn’t quite work out for herself. And fuck it all if she wasn’t beautiful as hell. Alexis felt the guilt eating her up that she was too afraid to be open out things with Kate. Any man or woman would be lucky to be with Kate. Hell, sometimes when Kate’s face was buried between her legs, she felt a dread sense of guilt, especially while sober. Alcohol deadened that guilt, she hated to admit it. And Kate was reaching a point in her life when she was reaching a crossroads. But Alexis was not. She had years to go, and she still didn’t feel grown-up enough to have a child of her own at twenty-three. And then, she thought about her father, having her at twenty-two. She was now a year older than he was. What the hell was wrong with her? Her father couldn’t have been ready to have a kid then. But he did.

They said nothing could prepare you for children, but she just wasn’t ready for the challenge. But Kate was. Did she need to just jump in and see what happened? But losing Kate scared her more: Kate could indulge in her insecurities and was a safe place. Alexis could not imagine losing that. They loved each other. Right?

Then why couldn’t Alexis proclaim it proudly that she was in love with Kate?

Because it meant she wasn’t as perfect as had maintained for years.

And Alexis could not be imperfect.

She got up and brushed her teeth. What was wrong and what was right? She wasn’t sure. She gazed into the mirror above the sink and saw the circles under her eyes. Kate had some eye-brightening cream in her make-up drawer, which she got out and applied under her eyes, hoping it would work soon. Back in the bedroom, she climbed back into bed beside Kate.

Kate stirred, her eyes opening. “Good morning, cupcake,” Kate said. There wasn’t the usual warmth, but she had used her pet name.

“‘Morning,” Alexis replied, and laid down next to her. They laid in the bed together, gazing at each other until Kate reached over and stroked Alexis’ hair. “Thanks for giving me time to think about having a family with you.”

A smile crossed Kate’s face. “You’re welcome. And I didn’t mean to push you into anything. I’m sorry, I thought… future talk, you know? We’ve been together long enough that I thought you might be okay with talking about it.”

“No, I am,” Alexis admitted. “Being with you in the future gives me something satisfying to think about. You’re… my rock. My anchor, you know?”

Kate’s expression softened. “I don’t mind that.” She lifted her head to kiss Alexis, and Alexis felt herself melt. Maybe things weren’t so bad. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Alexis whispered. “I’m sorry about last night, too.” She stoked Kate’s side and buried her face in her neck.

“You’re young,” Kate said. “You’ve got your whole life ahead of you. I’m a little jealous I’m not a twenty-something anymore.”

“Jealous of insecurity? No idea of what I’m going to do with my life? My career?” Alexis kissed Kate’s thrumming pulse on her neck. “Yes, so much to be jealous of.”

“Lex, baby… you’re  young . I’m not so young any more. I’m almost forty, who wants to have kids in their forties? Do you understand where I’m coming from?”

“I do,” Alexis said, rolling over on top of Kate. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry I don’t get it.”

“It’s alright,” Kate said, wrapping her arms around her, squeezing her. She rocked her girlfriend in her arms and Alexis felt her breathing her in. “And who says you don’t have a career? I think you will be an amazing artist. And you’ve made a huge step towards it in the workshop. It’s an enormous deal to have a professionals critique your work.”

“I guess. Everybody’s a critic.”

“I know. What do I know about being an artist? I’m not an artist. But I’ll do anything to show you how much I love you, okay? I want you to be happy.”

Alexis lifted her head. How selfless  was  Kate? “You do?” she asked.

“Mmm-hmm,” Kate responded. Kate wanted her to be happy, yet she was so selfish, she couldn’t talk about their future goals together? But the idea of a family scared her.

“Kate, I really do want you to be happy, too,” Alexis said, resting her forehead on hers. “I’m sorry. I’m going to my best and make you proud.”

“You’ve been sober how long? I’m proud of that,” Kate said, squeezing her asscheeks.

“Mmm,” Alexis sighed, enjoying Kate’s hands on her ass, yet feeling the guilt.

“You like that?”

“I do,” Alexis said. Kate’s hands cupped her butt, and she groaned slightly, feeling aroused.

“We’re going to have to make this quick if we’re going to do this, because I have a chess match in the park with my dad at ten,” Kate said, grinning.

“We can totally do this before your chess match,” Alexis replied, sitting up. She pulled her top off over her head and tossed it to the floor, and pushed Kate’s up in return to cup her breasts, to tease her nipples, and draw the tip of her own tongue around them, and then slipped her hand down inbetween her legs. They made quick work of getting each other’s remaining pajamas off, and then Kate stopped her from trailing kisses down her torso.

“Let’s speed this up,” Kate said, getting up to her knees. She slid a hand down Alexis’ torso to play with the wet heat, causing a gasp. “Let me show you a quicker way to get this done. Lay down. Tell me if you don’t like this.”

Alexis laid down, compliantly, and Kate got one more kiss from her before sliding down her torso, and driving her tongue through Alexis’ cleft, causing a shriek. Kate’s tongue teased the swollen nub, and when Alexis opened her eyes, she had an amazing view of her ass. Alexis reached for the curve of her cheek, and Kate took that moment to lift her head, and smirk back at her. She then climbed atop the pale redhead, and straddled her head, her knees on either side of Alexis’ ears, Alexis lifted her head and eagerly took a lick, in heaven as Kate returned the favor. The two explored each other with their tongues, and with each stroke, they returned it. Alexis felt herself going over the edge, and came quickly, trembling, and Kate came around the same time. Alexis greedily lapped up her girlfriend’s orgasm, enjoying every second.

Kate wiped her mouth off on the inside of Alexis’ thigh and laid down on her side beside her, resting her head on Alexis’ knee. “How was it?”

“Amazing,” Alexis admitted, her skin tingling, brushing Kate’s hair with her fingertips.

They laid there for a moment, and Kate sat up.

“I’m going to take a shower, I’ve got to be at Central Park in an hour for a chess match with Dad. You want to go with me?”

“To the shower or the park?”

“Both.”

Alexis considered meeting Kate’s father. She had never met him before, but it was incredibly intimidating for her. She shivered. “Will you introduce me as your girlfriend?”

Kate’s post-coital glow dimmed. “Well… what else would I introduce you as?”

“Kate, I’m sorry,” Alexis said, sitting up, grabbing the sheet to cover up with. “I didn’t want to revisit this so soon. Just give me time, okay?”

Kate nodded, her disappointment shining through. “Okay. You know your way out.” She got up and kissed Alexis on the cheek before going to the bathroom to shower.

* * *

Kate arrived at the park with a pair of coffees for herself and her father. Jim was waiting. “Hi, sweetheart.”

“Hi, Dad,” she said, taking her seat, trying to smile, handing him the coffee.

“Everything okay?” he asked, seeing her discomfort.

“Sure. Why do you ask?”

“Because I’m your father, I can tell when something’s off. Is it work?”

“No.”

“Then what is it? Katie… come on, you don’t expect me to believe that you aren’t upset about something,” he said, setting up the chess pieces. “What is it? You know you can talk to your old Dad.”

Kate smirked for once at her father. “Oh, Dad,” she sighed.

“Come on, something’s up.”

“It’s… you know Kevin and Jenny? I’m godmother to their little girl, Sarah Grace?”

“Yeah, I remember them. Good people, they are.”

“Well, they had their second baby.”

“Oh, that’s great! They did?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Kate nodded. She was playing the black chess pieces this week, her father took his first move. “Savannah Jo. She’s adorable. I got to hold her, too.”

“Are you going to be godmother to that one, too?”

Kate shook her head. “No, Javier is. But… I’m starting to feel like these are the last days of my life to have a baby of my own.”

Jim gasped. “You’re having a baby?”

“No, Dad! Not yet,” she sighed. “I’d like to, but…”

“Finally! I’ll become a grandfather! Are you looking  only  at men, now?”

“You know I can have a baby through a sperm bank,” she reminded him, slightly annoyed. It was still a slightly awkward subject for them.

“Well… I was hoping you’d take a slightly more traditional route, Katie, that’s all.”

For all his adjustments and strides forwards he had made in his acceptance of his only daughter as bisexual, this wasn’t as offensive to her as most bisexuals probably would have taken it. “I know, but Dad, ‘traditional marriage’ by today’s standards is a relatively new idea.”

“I just think about how close you got to marriage a few years ago, and how much I liked him.”

Kate nodded in response. She didn't want to think about Castle.  


“You were so happy. I want you to be that happy. And to know the joy of family like your mother and I did when we had you,” Jim continued. “Do you really you could have that with a woman?”

“Yes, I do,” she said. “You know I’m not a traditional lady. In some senses I am, in others, not so much.”

“So you’re seeing a woman?” Jim asked.

“Right now, yes. And I’d hope you’d give her a fair chance.”

“Of course I would, honey. But the world won’t. That’s what scares me the most about you being non-conventional.”

“Just say it: you want me to be straight.”

“Katherine Houghton, don’t put words in my mouth. I’ve come to terms with you not being traditional, and you not being an extension of me and my values. I’d like to think I’ve gotten over that. But you’re still my daughter and I love you very much, regardless of what I’ve done wrong. And my greatest hope for you is that your life isn’t any harder than it has to be. You’re going to tell me that people who lead unconventional lifestyles are accepted in modern-day society just as much as the conventional people?”

Kate didn’t want to admit her father was speaking some truth on some level. In New York, it wasn’t so bad, but leaving New York, not so much. She had experienced people telling her to make up her mind, she could either be lesbian or straight, there was no inbetween, she had had men attempt to fetishize her and objectify her simply due to her attraction to women, too. She couldn’t lie to herself and say that those men would never treat their exclusively heterosexual girlfriends the opposite way. Her girlfriends always told her of being pressured to fool around with women, but some men… some men pushed so hard for threesomes and for her bring a woman home to fool around with while they watched. That disrespectfulness infuriated her. There were times she wanted a relationship, to be close to someone and to be vulnerable and honest with them without them putting pressure on her to do wild and stupid sexual acts that she was uncomfortable with for their turn-on. She had feelings and she didn’t like being pushed past her relationship boundaries. She had had that with Castle; he saw her, and treated her like a full person, never demanded that she do sexual acts with another person, especially a woman, for his personal enjoyment. He respected her need to feel vulnerable with him and he had opened up, back. Her sexuality was not entertainment to him. She wasn’t a joke, but her sexuality was trivialized in society and bisexual women were treated like party tricks, whores (that if you pushed an on/off switch) that would fuck everyone in sight, not people with standards preferences. It had hurt her in the past, until she wisened up and walked out the door when challenged like that. “No, Dad, I’m not going to tell you that. But I knew at such an early age. It’s not something I chose or can change.”

“Honestly, I knew. I knew deep down, but I didn’t want to admit it to myself.”

“You knew? How old was I?”

“I think you were about five. You told me that you thought girls were pretty one weekend in Vermont.”

“Oh, Dad, I was a kid then,” she scoffed. “That didn’t mean anything.”

“You showed signs off and on. You don’t know how relieved I was when you came home one summer crying that the Venkley boy didn’t like you back when you were fifteen.”

Kate blushed. “Oh, Ethan Venkley turned out to be such a…”

“A what?”

“A prick. He led me on so badly. I’m still mad at him.” She chuckled to herself.

“He’s still living in that little town off the lake, working the Mom and Pop General store.”

“Oh, really?” Kate asked, surprised. “I thought he came to NYU for college.”

“Well, his mother held on for a few years after his father succumbed to Alzhiemer’s. He’s married now, you know? I don’t know what brought him back to the lake, though.”

“Oh, he is?” Kate asked. “Is he happy?”   
Jim shrugged. “I’m going to the lake next week to do some early morning fishing. You want to come up next weekend?”

The cabin was a great place to relax and escape the jittery pace of the city. It was a bit of a drive, but Kate knew all the landmarks and roads by heart. But Alexis’ workshop was this week. She couldn’t skip it, but she had promised. It was something she was excited about, personally. “I’ve got plans, but I might. I’ll call you, okay, Dad?”

“Good, sweetheart. Your move.”

 

* * *

Alexis was certain she’d puke the night of the workshop, but she wasn’t nervous. She knew why: she had painted her painting of Kate with fascination and passion. And Kate loved it. Kate’s support made her certain it would go over well.  
Alexis twisted and turned until she had the back of her dress zipped up, and admired her choice in the mirror. She had gone shopping with this simple rule: would Gram wear it? And it had been a good rule. The dress was a little black dress with an amber-colored butterfly wing over the shoulder down to her waist. She had topped it off with an amber-stoned headband and some tawny eye make-up, and an older pair Manolo Blahniks spiked heeled booties.

She smoothed the skirt, and glanced at herself in the mirror. For a moment, she didn’t recognize herself, but then took a picture with her phone, to send to her grandmother, to whom she had spoken to this morning. She hadn’t told her grandmother about Kate, but said that she was dating around and was participating in the workshop. Martha said she wanted to be there to support her, but her filming schedule did not support it. That did relieve Alexis slightly, although more support would have been appreciated. Grams would come out to visit during the break in May. Alexis shudder to think that her grandmother would find out that she was seeing Kate and the inevitable questions that were too terrible for her to imagine. They were awful in her head, even though she didn’t quite know what they were. She didn’t want to think about what Gram would say, so she sat down and fanned herself, to stop the sweating. It didn’t stop.

The only option left was in the desk’s cabinet pushed up against the wall in the studio. It beat like _the Tell-Tale Heart._

She kicked off her shoes and pulled the desk out just enough to open the cabinet and managed to wrench out the unopened flask. She opened it, looking at the script on the bottle, and took a swig. Then another. And one more for good luck.

There.

The terror was dulled.

She felt the heat of the drink across her face and her limbs loosen, before realizing that she was going to be late if she didn’t catch a taxi in the next ten minutes. Alexis picked up her keys and her purse and took the elevator downstairs, sending Kate a text to let her know she was on her way to the gallery.

At the gallery, she walked in, nerves rising, and felt the terror at her painting being up on the wall with ten others. People were already milling around sipping champagne and nibbling on appetizers, and commenting on the different paintings on the walls.

She took a step in, slipping on the spike in her heel, and just barely catching herself before she fell. An arm reached out and helped her up, and she looked into the eyes of a handsome man, a little older than herself, with a beard a dark hipster glasses. He was wearing a scarf, despite the swelling temperature outside.

“You’re alright?” he asked.

“Yeah, just slipped,” she admitted.

“Aaron Trivet,” he said, extending a hand to shake.

“Alexis Castle,” she replied, taking his hand. “Nice to meet you.”

“Are you in the workshop?”

“I am,” she said. He got a flute of champagne and handed it to her, which she accepted. “Are you?”

He shook his head. “I’m just here for an assignment.”

“For what?”   
“I’m a grad student at Pratt. In the art department. I’ve got an undergrad student in here.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding. She took a big gulp of the champagne, hoping she didn’t burp aloud from it.

“Alexis!” Kate’s voice rang out.

Alexis jumped a mile with the champagne flute in her hand, and she saw Kate coming through the crowd, holding a glass with some fruity pink drink in it. “Oh, Kate!”

“There you are,” Kate said, and she went to hug her, but Alexis pulled back.

“It’s good to see you.” She didn’t mean to ice Kate out like this, but she didn’t want to be publicly affectionate with her, even if she didn’t know these people.

“Hi, Kate Beckett,” Kate introduced herself to Aaron.

“Kate’s here to support me,” Alexis explained without being asked.

“Nice to meet you. Aaron Trivet,” he said. “Not in the workshop, but I’ve had a few pieces displayed in here. What about you?”

“Oh, I’m not a painter or… artist,” Kate said, sheepishly. “I’m with the NYPD.”

“Ooh! Oh no!” Aaron joked, backing up a step. “Hands up, don’t shoot!”

Alexis wanted to die for some reason.

Kate rolled her eyes, good-naturedly. “Hey, we’re not all corrupt pigs.”

Aaron laughed. “I didn’t say that!”

“I support the arts, thank you,” Kate joked, taking a sip of her drink.

“I was about to say, you’re too pretty to be a cop.”

“I’m not a beat cop. I’m a captain,” Kate replied jovially.

How was Kate doing this? Alexis wondered. How did she just meet people and get along with them so gracefully, when she, Alexis, was an awkward, shy mess these days? It was annoying how Kate was such an amazing conversationalist. Why she have to be so damn good at so many damn things?  Alexis thought bitterly.  And why did she have to be so fucking beautiful that I feel like a Raggedy Anne Doll all the time next to her?

When Aaron had to go see to one of his undergrad students, Kate turned to Alexis and very gently took the flute from her hand. Alexis reluctantly let go. “Hey,” she said. “What’s going on? Did you forget champagne has alcohol in it?”

Alexis blushed. “Well, sort of. What are you drinking?”

“It’s a virgin Tahiti Sunrise. They’ve got a full bar, you can get them to make just about anything virgin.”

Alexis felt some indignation: she didn’t need Kate doing whatever she was doing. Tonight, Alexis felt like she was owed a little leniency when it came to alcohol.

“I love your dress,” Kate noted, slipping a hand along the small of her back, but Alexis jerked away. Kate looked beautiful in her own little black dress that had some beading on it to make it look almost iridescent, paired with some heels that made her legs look irrationally long and sexy. Alexis loved those legs, but at the same time felt jealousy and annoyance. It turned Alexis on and made her angry all at once. It wasn’t fair that Kate was so pretty and trying to mother her when it came to her drinking: why couldn’t she just give her pass tonight? Kate’s expression soured. “Oh, I see. Even in a place where nobody knows us, you’re going to ice me out here, too.”

“Kate, I don’t know these people,” Alexis whispered. “Just give me a break, will you?”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Okay. Fine.”

They went around, not touching, nothing physically affectionate between the two of them, and met the different people at the workshop. The judges were quite stuck-up and didn’t want to converse at all. Alexis still felt aggravated that Kate did a better job at conversing with others than she did, and she wanted the grace and ease that Kate had. Why didn’t she? She did have it when she had a few drinks. She could feel herself sobering up and she didn’t like it.

The workshop was called to order, and the group gathered at the walls where the paintings were hanging. Alexis found herself trembling, and suddenly nauseous. 

Why had she let one person’s opinion of her work convince her that she was ready for this? She felt Kate’s hand on her shoulder blade, but didn’t bother to look at her.

The judges walked up and down the line, observing each painting for the last time.

She felt the shivers of what was a mixture of fear and sickness running through her muscles; vomiting was definitely an option.

Each of the paintings was critiqued and Alexis felt worse and worse. Why had she let Kate talk her into entering her paintings? Kate was not an artist of any kind, she never painted, and had no training in art. The most she did was strum a guitar from time to time. This was a huge event with some notable painters who had done this before. Alexis was nothing more than someone who painted in her freetime. She felt beads of sweat gathering under her breasts, in the small of her back, on the nape of her neck, and on her forehead as the judges got to the painting of the back of Kate from college. Alexis’ vision got splotchy.

“What do you say about this one?” the older lady with a buzz cut said.

“I’ve got three words for you: childish, amateur, and pedantic,” one of her male counterparts replied.

“I agree. Why is this even  in this workshop?” the lady said. “It’s silly, almost pornographic in the nudity, almost like a child’s fascination with sex, not  art or a love of the beauty of the human form.”

“The fundamentals are weak,” the third judge said. “And you can tell the artist ran out of paint and had to mix a new batch that doesn’t quite match in pigment from here,” he gestured, “to here. Piss-poor planning.”

Alexis thought she’d faint.  Well, this turned out really  well , Alexis thought. Her skin was burning from humiliation so badly, she thought she was on fire for a moment. She felt tears gathering in her eyes, but, with all her might, held them in. She couldn’t cry while everyone in the room was silent. Kate squeezed her elbow in some twisted version of support.

They finally got to the last painting, although Alexis couldn’t hear what they said, and finally, she broke away from the crowd and went to the restroom. Alexis flung Kate’s hand off her, and walked away in as dignified manner as she could. She was not ready for this. She hadn’t been at all.

The people started chatting again, and she locked herself in a bathroom stall, but she couldn’t let the tears fall, suddenly. Not now. She sat down on the toilet and rested her head between her knees, wishing she didn’t exist.

She remembered the night that Captain Gates knocked on her door with the grave news. She remembered the helpless sensation of free falling, knowing she’d hit the earth soon and break every bone in her body and die, hitting the floor, screaming at the idea of her father being there one minute, gone the next without warning. Her father, her rock was gone, and she was free-falling like skydiver, only without her parachute. 

All she wanted was to die, that seemed like the only way to get away from this awful hell she had invented for herself. She wanted to perfect, to have these judges say there was promise in her work. But as always, the shame of being imperfect came along. Why the fuck couldn’t she be more perfect? Then nobody and nothing could shame her or embarrass her.

Why did she think she was adequate to be judged? When she put her art out there, she was really asking,  what do you think of me ? And apparently, she was “childish,” “vapid,” “pedantic,”

and too dumb to mix up enough paint color to last through what she had tried to paint. They could see her freakish fascination with women and it was immature and perverted, not art to them. They saw her mistakes, her inadequacies, and the horrible truth she had tried to cover up her entire life: there was something fundamentally wrong with  her . It wasn’t just the same-sex attraction, it wasn’t just her inability to maintain being perfect, it was  her . She was wrong. She didn’t deserve to live. She deserved to self-destruct.

Bam, bam, bam.

Alexis jumped a mile, shaken out of her thoughts.

“Alexis?”

It was Kate.

The sound of her own name on Kate’s lips suddenly enraged her: Kate had talked her into this to get her into bed. And she had lapped up the attention in their twisted, almost incestuous, perverted relationship that was a slap in the face to her father’s memory, and the judges might as well have known, they practically guessed just looking at her painting. She was starved for that attention and Kate gave it to her. She didn’t want to be attracted to women, she could tell herself over and over she was not, but the way her body reacted to the attention, the way her skin burned when their eyes connected, the electric sparks when they kissed, when they touched, it was so wrong, but enjoyable in the moment, but freakish. Imperfect. She couldn’t even come up with words to respond to Kate right now.

“Alexis, please come out,” Kate pleaded. “I know that was rough, but they don’t know everything.”

Kate was grating on her nerves, now. “Go away.”

“I’m not going away. I’m here for you-”

“I don’t need you right now!” Alexis heard herself snap. 

“Cupcake-”

“Don’t call me that! Not in public!”

“I’m trying to support you!” Kate cried. 

“I don’t need you,” Alexis hissed. “I don’t need you. Go away.”

There was a long pause, but Kate’s shoes didn’t move from under the stall door. “Okay. Fine. Be like that.”

Kate spun on her heel and marched away.

And Alexis could finally cry.

* * *

There she goes, acting like a spoiled brat and icing me out again,  Kate thought bitterly. Maybe Alexis  was too young for her after all, but Jesus Christ, those judges had been so harsh on her work. Knowing Alexis’ all-or-nothing attitude, she was afraid she’d go home tonight and light a match to all her paintings in the studio over a bottle of vodka. Kate didn’t want to see that.

Kate sent Lanie a text, knowing her night was crashing if she didn’t get out of here soon, with or without Alexis. On the other hand, Alexis could fend for herself for one night, for all Kate cared, especially if she was going to talk to her like that and behave like a bratty child. Kate didn’t need that shit.

“Hey,” Aaron said to her.

“Hi,” Kate said.

“You okay?” he asked.

Kate nodded, putting her phone back into her handbag. 

“Just letting you know, there’s an after party at McClellan’s tonight,” he said. “We’re heading over there right now.”

“Thanks, I don’t know if I’m going though,” Kate said.

“Just come over and have a drink with us. It’s good PR for the NYPD, right?”

Kate forced a smirk. “Yeah, sure.”

She got her phone back out to see if her best friend had responded to her, yet, and she had not. Kate waited a few more minutes to see if she could get Alexis to come out and stop being so bratty and blaming her for all her problems, but it never happened. Lanie never texted her back, either, so Kate went across the street to the hole-in-the-wall bar. Luckily, with all the art people there, she didn’t feel overdressed.

She wanted to order a beer to calm her nerves, but she had promised Alexis she wouldn’t drink. But she had caught Alexis with a flute of champagne, and she knew that Alexis hadn’t just ‘slipped,’ deep down. She actively chose to drink tonight, which felt like a punch in the stomach to Kate. Well, she could avoid drinking to show Alexis it was possible. She ordered a non-alcoholic beer and joined some of the others that were playing darts at one end of the dive, and they let her join in. The dive started to feel a little friendlier as the darts game continued, and Kate started to feel better, now that she was distracted from the whole mess with Alexis.

Maybe Alexis would get over her rejection tonight in time and stop being so silly.

She ordered another bottle of non-alcoholic beer and joined in the second game of darts, only to realize she needed to pee. She got up and went to the restroom, hoping there was at least soap in the dispensers, only to find the women’s room locked, someone else was using it. The restrooms in here were single-toilet ones, so only one person could use it at a time, so she thought she’d take her chances with the men’s room.

She opened the door, only to be greeted with a sight she was not prepared for: Alexis was on her knees in front of the Trivet guy, his eyes rolled back in his head. She hadn’t heard the tell-tale signs of a blow job because the music was too loud.

Kate dropped her beer and it crashed to the floor. Alexis whirled around, a look of guilt on her face.

Again, she felt like she had been punched in the stomach, even harder this time. Hot tears gathered in the back of her eyes, but she was too furious to let them fall.

“Alexis?” Kate spat out. “What in the fuck are you doing?”

There was a long pause, but Kate realized she didn’t need an answer. Anything Alexis told her was going to be an excuse or worse, attempt to blame her for her behavior. Alexis seemed to be doing a lot of that tonight. 

Kate turned around walked away, tears blurring her vision.

The feeling in her stomach turned into rage as she stormed out of the bar and hailed a taxi. She knew the feeling; betrayal. She had been cheated on before, and while it hadn’t happened recently, the ache and humiliation and confusion were familiar to her.

“Kate!” Alexis called after her. “Wait! Please!”

The idea of turning around and punching Alexis in the face almost felt too good right now. She had done nothing but encouraged her and supported her, and this was the thanks she got? This, and a complete fear of letting her have a baby, a look of disgust at her wants and hopes?

The truth was, Alexis had used her way too much. ALexis was a giant ball of fucked up and it was time she washed her hands of it. Castle had told her how selfish and crazy Meredith was, all the she cheated, and it seemed the apple hadn’t fallen far from the tree.

Kate turned around to see what Alexis could possibly say to defend her actions. “What do you want, now?” she asked, eye narrowing, teeth grinding as the hot, enraged tears finally spilled over. Alexis’ makeup was smeared under her eyes and her hair was messed up, and she looked terribly guilty. “God, I want to fucking punch you right now. Right in your cheating mouth.”

“Excuse me, you said it was fine if I wanted to be with a man-”

“But to  ask me, first!” Kate barked. “You have treated me like  shit tonight! Hell, you treat me like your dirty little secret because you can’t come out of the closet like an adult! Do you know how that makes me feel?” Kate knew she was just raging at Alexis, but Alexis deserved it right now. “Getting involved with you was a mistake. God, I knew it was.”

“Are you breaking up with me?” Alexis asked, aghast.

“In a dive bar bathroom, and you couldn’t even text me that you wanted to give some weird hipster you just met a blow job? You disgust me,” Kate fumed, not caring if people on the street were watching them fight like this. “I’m going home.  Goodnight ,  Cupcake .”

She climbed into the cab and slammed the door shut behind herself.

When she arrived home, she stripped out of the dress, that seemed tainted now, and her bra, putting on a pair of yoga pants and a long-sleeve t-shirt, and got an unopened bottle of wine out of her kitchen cabinet. She popped the cork, and sloppily poured with shaking hands a glass of the red blend and wiped her tears with her sleeve.

She drank a few sips on the couch, sobbing to herself, and got up to vomit the red liquid before going to bed. She curled up into the covers, sobbing to herself.

How could Alexis do that to her? They were not in an open, polyamorous relationship where they didn’t care whom the other one slept with. She had thought that was a reasonable expectation when they laid out the rules of their relationship, and Alexis had violated that. It wasn’t like she didn’t expect Alexis to tell her she wanted to sleep with someone else. But their entire relationship, Alexis had told hinted that she, Kate, wasn’t enough. Kate couldn’t believe she had let Alexis’ bullshit bring her down.

Kate did not sleep that night. She woke up the next morning and called out sick after seeing her own swollen eyes in her bathroom mirror. After making a pot of coffee, she rooted through the cabinets for some tea bags to set down and set on her eyes to help them with the swelling when her door buzzer went off.

She accepted the call.

“ Kate ?” Alexis asked meekly. “ It’s me. ”

Kate had a whole line full of things to lecture her with, but didn’t have the energy to respond.

“ Are you going to ignore me or let me up? ” Alexis asked.

Kate wasn’t sure.

“ I know you’re home. ”

Kate stood at the intercom, her heart being pierced all over again.

“ Kate, I’m so sorry about last night ,” Alexis begged, her voice breaking. “ Just let me up so I can explain. ”

Kate hit the intercom. “Explain what? My bullshit meter is running pretty low today, Lex.”

“ I just want to apologize. ”

She snorted.  Apologize? “You think an apology’s going to it all better? Erase last night? You broke my heart!”

“ Please. Let me come up ,” Alexis begged. “ Please, Kate! ”

Kate hit the enter button to let her in, although she knew she was just going to hear excuses and bullshit from Alexis this morning.

Alexis came in the door, looking rumpled and dirty, like she too hadn’t slept the night before. Kate picked up her mug of coffee and sat down on the couch. “Okay. So tell me why you ripped my heart out last night.”

“I thought.. I thought it was okay once-in-a-while-”

“Don’t bullshit me. You know you needed to ask me before you did something like that,” Kate replied. “And you were so mean to me last night. What the hell did I do to you? Nothing.”

“I-I know,” Alexis muttered, sitting down in the armchair across from Kate. She began sobbing, and tears rolled down her cheeks, but Kate didn’t have any sympathy for her right now. She sat, like a stone, glaring at her.

“Do you expect me to feel sorry for you for treating me like shit? You’ve done it since day one. I knew it was a mistake to get involved with someone who was still in the closet.”

“I didn’t mean to- you just pushed me to do the workshop and then-”

“Yes, it’s everybody’s fault but your own,” Kate snorted, letting out a bitter laugh. “Christ, grow up, Alexis! I used to think you were so grown up and so perfect and-”

“I’m not,” Alexis whispered. “I’m not perfect, Kate. I know it.”

“Oh, you’re finally admitting it.”

Alexis dissolved into tears. “I wish I were, then I wouldn’t get hurt!”

“Go ahead. Cry it out,” Kate muttered.

“What are you going to do?” Alexis choked between sobs. “Break up with me? Abandon me? Kate, please, don’t leave me!”

“What do you expect?” Kate asked. “God, I put way too much into this relationship, and all I got out of it was some sex, and that’s it! No support, no encouragement, no dreams to grow on! There’s so much more to a relationship than sex, you know! I thought you loved me back-”

“I do!” Alexis pleaded. “Kate, I do! I do love you-”

“Then why did you blame me for last night?”   
“Kate…” Alexis twisted the throw pillow between her hands, wringing it. “Kate, I have to tell you something.”

“Fine,” Kate said, flinging her free hand into the air. “More bullshit to tear my heart in two!”

“Kate… I can’t stop drinking!”

“What?”

“I never stopped. Not really.”

Another blow, Kate thought. “So you lied to me?” she asked, her jaw dropping.

“I thought I could wean myself off, but… Kate, I don’t know how to stop. I’m so lost and so scared. You’re the only thing to hold to, sometimes.” Another loud sob escaped Alexis. “I want to die, sometimes, it’s so bad. I wasn’t fair to you. But I do love you, and I’m so scared of disappointing you… I need you.”

Kate knew well enough that Alexis’ erratic behavior was dangerous and linked to her drinking. And just that she couldn’t stop drinking made scared Kate. The idea that Alexis might hurt herself or get arrested or do something stupid while drunk that could kill her was terrifying. What if breaking up sent her into a spiral like that? Her father woke up in a gutter in Queens without his wallet, shoes, or watch and a police officer was arresting him for public drunkenness, but she hadn’t been there to collect him. That was his story as to his rock-bottom. Did she really want something that terrible happening to Alexis? Did she want to be responsible for it?

“Please, give me another chance. I’ll try something more aggressive to stop drinking, hell, I’ll go to rehab, I’ll join AA, I’ll get a therapist, I just don’t want to lose you,” Alexis begged.

“Lex,” she said softly. “Lex, I can’t just forgive you like that.”

“I’m not asking you to just flip a switch and forgive me,” Alexis said softly, a shudder going through her torso. “I just want you to work on it. And I’ll prove to you I can be someone worth loving. I’ll take steps to come out of the closet, I don’t know! I just can’t see  me without  you anymore.”

Kate shook her head. “I don’t see how… I don’t see how I can just put myself back in a relationship where you’re ashamed of me.”

“I’m not,” Alexis whispered, getting out of the chair and kneeling in front of Kate. “I’m just scared of what other people will think of me. But, Kate… I’m so lucky to be with you. And have you put up with me and my bullshit,” a nervous, almost insane laugh came out of her mouth. “Kate, you are the most beautiful, wonderful person I’ve ever met. Please...  please . Don’t give up on me.”

Kate rubbed her forehead.

She loved Alexis, she did, but she wasn’t going to be treated like this. “Lex,” she said softly. “I do love you, why else would I be so hurt?”

“Please don’t string me along,” Alexis begged.

“I’m not.”

“I fucked up. I really did,” Alexis rambled. “But when it’s just you and me, I don’t feel so fucked up. I start feeling normal again.”

Kate reached over and stroked Alexis’ hair. “Do you understand how difficult it’s going to to be for me to trust you again?”

Alexis sniffed, gazing into Kate’s eyes.

“You are going to have to work so hard to get sober.”

“Are you giving me another chance?” she asked in a tiny, child-like, hopeful voice.   
“Yes, cupcake. I am.”


End file.
